'All Lives Matter to our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ' sign got football coach fired: lawsuit

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Just the News

First Amendment lawsuit by a college football team's ex-offensive coordinator may hinge on the performance of his players.

 

Kurt Beathard claims he was dumped because he removed an Illinois State University (ISU) athletics department Black Lives Matter poster from his office door. He replaced it with a handwritten poster reading "All Lives Matter to our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ." 

Student athletes boycotted practice in part because of his action, and the next day head football coach Brock Spack told Beathard he did not "like the direction of the offense."

Beathard was "reassigned to a completely bogus and made-up position" in which he worked from home through the end of his 2020 contract, which was not renewed, the suit claims. Director of Athletics Larry Lyons "authorized and supported" the adverse action. (ISU itself is not a defendant.)

"If you put the government's message on your door, you keep your job," Beathard's lawyer Doug Churdar said in a press release accompanying the suit. "If you replace it with your own message, you're fired."