A longtime Pulaski Academy physics teacher wants to challenge the school in court after he lost his job and was escorted out of the building Monday for refusing to wear a mask.
Doug Reed, who is also the District 1 Justice of the Peace for western Pulaski County, said he complied with the school's masking rule until he no longer felt comfortable doing so from a religious perspective.
"It was a conscience-based decision that I felt like God impressed on me," Reed said in a Tuesday interview.
Pulaski Academy declined his request for a religious exemption, claiming that it would be an undue hardship to send him home and into quarantine every time he was exposed to covid-19, according to the GoFundMe page Reed set up to crowdfund legal fees for the civil lawsuit he plans to file.
He cited the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which asserts freedom of religion, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits religious discrimination.
The GoFundMe started collecting money Monday, but Reed started it two days earlier because "you could lose your job if you stand up against [covid-19 policies], so if you're going to fight it, you've got to be prepared," he said.
The fundraiser had amassed more than $9,000 as of Tuesday evening, with $75,000 as the goal.
Arkansas law allows elected officials and public servants to accept gifts, including money, as long as they are not related to the elected position or the public service.
Reed said $75,000 is "an arbitrary number," and he does not expect to need that much. He does not yet have an attorney.
He also said the administration at Pulaski Academy, where he taught for 27 years, has not spoken to him since his dismissal Monday.
Pulaski Academy President Brock Dunn said Tuesday that he could not comment on personnel matters and requests for exemptions from the mask mandate are handled on a case-by-case basis.
Reed said he also sent a religious exemption to county officials, since the Quorum Court meets two Tuesdays per month. The county has not responded to his request as of Tuesday, he said.
The county attorney and human resources department handle exemption requests, communications director Cozetta Jones said in an email.
Religious freedom arguments against mask mandates are not new. A Catholic elementary school in Michigan challenged the state Health Department's mask mandate in 2020, claiming masks encroach on religion by hiding faces "made in God's image and likeness."
A federal judge struck down the challenge, and a federal appeals court supported the judge's decision in August 2021.
Reed emphasized in an interview and on the GoFundMe page that he does not want to "punish anybody" for enforcing mask mandates.
"I'm out to get businesses to behave on the Constitution, and it unfortunately has to start with the place I used to work," he said.