Jury decides ex-teacher was not a victim of bias

Rumors that a former Sevier County teacher was labeled a witch were not enough to convince a jury she was the victim of religious and gender discrimination.

After deliberating for almost 10 hours, a jury of four men and eight women concluded Monday that Erin Jensen did not sufficiently prove her allegations that the Sevier School District discriminated against her when they fired her.

After the verdict was read Monday night, Jensen turned to thank her attorneys and then left without offering comment.

Sevier School District attorney Kirk Gibbs called the verdict "appropriate," adding that Sevier School District Superintendent Brent Thorne was "vindicated." Gibbs felt Thorne was falsely accused of being a "religious bigot" and "sexist."

Jensen worked as an English teacher as South Sevier High School for about three years before she was terminated in 2003 and told she could never apply for a job at the school district again. Just months before she was fired, the teacher who founded the school's debate team and helped put together the yearbook was voted "teacher of the year" by school faculty.

District board members and Thorne testified they were concerned about overall SAT test scores in English when they chose to fire Jensen and another English teacher, a man. They were the only full-time teachers who were not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

School officials also expressed concern that some parents had complained about Jensen teaching their children about different religions. And students referred to the hallway where the two non-LDS teachers' rooms were located as "hell's corner."

In his closing argument Monday, Jensen's attorney, Erik Strindberg, said Jensen had talked to her students about Islam and Judaism while studying classic literature.

Strindberg called the case a "banner of discrimination" on the part of the school district, pointing to minutes of an executive session in which board members, meeting to decide whether to terminate Jensen and the other teacher, discussed some of the more vicious rumors spread about Jensen through the school and community.

According to a version of the minutes, district officials noted: "She also believes in witchcraft and paints her windows in her classroom black. Halloween was her favorite holiday and she doesn't hide the fact that she prefers the dark side."

Strindberg called those statements "code words talking about differences" in religious beliefs.