DENVER — When a former assistant principal at Ponderosa High School found out in 2020 that the school’s theater company planned to put on a play about what happened after Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was murdered, he objected to the production.
Now, two years later, Corey McNellis, who was also athletic director at the school, is suing Douglas County School District, alleging that the Parker school fired him in October 2020 because of his “Christian belief and because he expressed his views, which are protected by the First Amendment,” according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, on July 1.
McNellis says in the federal lawsuit that he found out about the production planned by Ponderosa’s theater company on Oct. 2, 2020, when the school’s theater director emailed staff about the play – called “The Laramie Project” – to let them know the “nature of the play so that if we have students who have an aggressively adverse reaction to our show choice that you can support us in helping students understand.”
