‘Tragic day’: Fire chief gets fired for attending Christian event, now Supreme Court asked to get involved

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to reverse the firing of a fire chief who lost his job in Stockton, California, because he attended an assigned leadership conference.

City officials apparently were enraged because the conference was in a church building.

First Liberty Institute has announced it, and others, have joined to ask the Supreme Court for a review of the case involving fire chief Ron Hittle.

“It is a tragic day for religious liberty in America when someone can be fired because they attend an event that includes religious perspectives,” said Stephanie Taub, a lawyer for First Liberty Institute.

“The city showed extreme anti-religious bias and broke the law when it fired Chief Hittle. We are asking the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s decision and uphold the clear meaning of Title VII to protect all Americans in the workplace.”

Aaron Streett, a lawyer with Baker Botts, which also is working on the case, said, “City of Stockton officials were completely intolerant of Chief Hittle’s religious beliefs. Federal law protects the freedom of every American to live without fear of being fired simply because of their beliefs.”

The institute explained that Stockton officials fired Hittle after 24 years of service “because he attended a leadership conference hosted at a church. Although the city requested Chief Hittle attend a leadership training course of his choice, it later opened an investigation after he attended Willow Creek Church’s Global Leadership Summit, a world-class conference with speakers from a variety of religious and non-religious backgrounds.”

Speakers at that conference historically have included Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Bill Clinton.

“The city listed Chief Hittle’s attendance at a ‘religious event’ while on duty as the primary reason for his termination,” the legal team explained.

He sued but a district court took the city’s side.

Alan Reinach is with Church State Council, which also is helping with the case.

He said, “Chief Ron Hittle was an exemplary leader of the Stockton Fire Department who was fired because of his Christian faith. But to make matters worse, the courts reversed the evidentiary assumptions and chose to believe Stockton’s denial that it did not discriminate, instead of focusing on the abundant evidence Chief Hittle supplied.”

The petition notes, “When plaintiffs have presented evidence that creates a fact issue regarding whether they were discriminated against, they should be permitted to try their case to a jury, period. That is how it works in virtually every other context. There is no reason that plaintiffs in Title VII cases should face the added burden of disproving the employer’s proffered reason for the adverse employment decision.

“Yet that errant and nontextual view holds sway in nearly half the country and is causing demonstrable injustices for worthy plaintiffs,” the petition states.

The city, faced with the dispute, assembled a long list of allegations against the fire chief in order to fire him, claiming he wasn’t able to implement city goals, used city resources to attend a “religious” event, the conference that the city gave him the option of choosing, didn’t talk about his knowing a contractor to the department, and how he owned part of a cabin and didn’t announce that.

The appeal points out that the lower court judge made decisions about disputes that only a jury should have resolved.

One lower court judge, on the fight, said, “The City of Stockton’s management frequently parroted derogatory and insulting terms coined by others to criticize Chief Hittle’s Christian faith. Although they now say they did so under the guise of ‘show[ing] concerns about other persons’ perceptions.’ The Supreme Court has already rejected “a ‘modified heckler’s veto, in which … religious activity can be proscribed’ based on ‘perceptions’ or ‘discomfort.'”