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Bucks County Community College Teacher Claims He Was Fired For Mentioning God In Letter To Students

BUCKS COUNTY, P.A., (CBS) -- A Bucks County Community College teacher says he was fired for mentioning God in a farewell letter to students. Mitch Anderson claimed a student in his Astronomy class was unhappy with what he wrote and turned him in to the school.

Anderson, who spoke with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, also attests a previous run in with the administration plays a factor in his termination.

"The only reason I say it was the God thing was because this is my second offense. My original offense goes back to 2013 because I had bought a small book called Since No One's Perfect, How Good is Good Enough by Andy Stanley and I bought one for each kid in the class and the end of the class and I left it on the table and said, I bought a book for each of you, if you want it, you can take it, if you don't want it, just leave it, it doesn't matter to me. I had done that a number of times, but this one time I had a student from New Jersey who took that book and, apparently, didn't like it and called me and asked me about changing his grade and if I didn't he would go to the dean about the book. I ignored that and he went to the dean."

He believes, based on the first encounter, the religious overtones of his letter must be the reasons for their action.

"What I got in an email was, having been a teacher in a public school you should have known that this was out of bounds. That was one of the emails that I got. I don't have access to those emails anymore. The other thing was, if this was considered my second offense, so if the first offense was decidedly the Christian book, I'm assuming this letter, the only thing that could be offending was the mention of God."

Anderson stated he has received a lot of support in the aftermath of the school's decision and is pursuing whatever recourse might be available.

"Many of my students have written to the County Commissioner who is on the board of the college. As a board member, usually they don't get too involved with hiring and firing, but he is appraised of it and looking into it."

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