COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Mount Vernon city schools’ firing of an eighth-grade science teacher who was accused of advancing religion and the Christian theory of creationism in his classroom.

But the court held that the district’s orders that he put away the personal Bible he kept on his desk violated his First Amendment rights of freedom of religion and therefore would not have been sufficient cause to fire him.

And the court did not address another question surrounding the case: Whether the teacher was unconstitutionally injecting his religious beliefs into the classroom.

The court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled that the district did not abuse its discretion when it fired John Freshwater, upholding a lower court's ruling that the action was supported by just cause. Freshwater was seeking reinstatement and back pay.

The Mount Vernon school board fired Freshwater in January 2011 following an investigation triggered by complaints from parents of an eighth-grade student. They claimed Freshwater used an electrical demonstration device called a Tesla coil to make a mark they said resembled a cross on the student's arm.

An independent investigator found that for years Freshwater had a Bible on his desk and a box of Bibles on a table in his classroom. A copy of the Ten Commandments was posted on a bulletin board and other materials endorsing Christian beliefs were on display.

The investigator found that Freshwater, an adviser for students in Fellowship of Christian Athletes, was asked to remove religious displays from his room and warned about distributing materials and making in-class statements. The board followed the investigator's advice and fired Freshwater, citing activities that advanced religious beliefs in the classroom, not adhering to board-set content standards and insubordination.

Freshwater fought the firing, citing his Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Lawyers for the school argued his firing was justified for insubordination.

Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, who authored the majority opinion, wrote that good and just cause for terminating a public school teacher's contract includes "insubordination consisting of a willful disobedience of, or refusal to obey, a reasonable and valid rule, regulation, or order issued by a school board or by an administrative superior."

In the majority ruling, the court upheld a lower court’s determination that Freshwater had indeed disobeyed orders that were reasonable and valid.

The school’s principal told Freshwater in writing that, as a public school teacher, he could not engage in activity that promoted a particular religion.

“Freshwater not only ignored the school district’s directive, he defied it,” O’Connor wrote. “After he was directed to remove the items, Freshwater deliberately added to them, incorporating the Oxford Bible and Jesus of Nazareth into the classroom. He then refused to remove his personal Bible from his desk, and refused to remove a depiction of former President George W. Bush and Colin Powell and others in prayer from his wall.”

The district’s orders to remove the materials were reasonable and valid and supported his firing for insubordination, the court held.

“Freshwater’s First Amendment rights did not protect the display of these items,” O’Connor wrote, “because they were not a part of his exercise of his religion.”

But in regard to his personal Bible, the district did overstep its authority. O’Connor said that Freshwater’s desk was considered his personal space, and that he relied on that Bible in the exercise of his religion, and that he did not display his personal Bible to his students.

“The government can encroach upon constitutional rights, but it must have a legitimate reason for doing so,” O’Connor wrote. “Here, the district’s reason was not legitimate. The district feared an Establishment Clause violation where none existed. Unsubstantiated fear alone cannot justify flouting the First Amendment.”

Because the removal order was not reasonable nor valid, it, by itself, would not support his termination, she wrote.

Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger, who concurred in the judgement, wrote in her own opinion that she would hold that the order to remove the Bible was reasonable.

Justices Judith French and William O'Neill concurred with O'Connor's opinion.

Justices Terrence O'Donnell dissented, joined by Justices Sharon Kennedy and Paul Pfeifer, who also wrote his own dissent.

In his dissent, O’Donnell argued Freshwater had been singled out by the school district for his willingness “to challenge students in his science classes to think critically about evolutionary theory and to permit them to discuss intelligent design and to debate creationism in connection with the presentation of the prescribed curriculum on evolution.”

He contended the evidence did not support the firing for insubordination.

Public school teachers have a First Amendment interest in choosing the method for presenting material in the school curriculum to students and noted that the academic freedom of teachers also extends to the teaching of controversial subjects, O’Donnell wrote.

The analysis used in support of his right to have his personal Bible on his desk should also have been applied to other materials he had on display in the room, O'Donnell argued, "because his purpose for doing so [religious inspiration] is protected by the Free

Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

“The presence of these school library books in the classroom cannot reasonably be viewed as an official endorsement of religion, because they are the school’s own books,” he wrote. As for the posters of President Bush and Colin Powell praying, Freshwater “considered it to inspire patriotism, not religion, and it had been provided to him by the school.”

In his dissent, Pfeifer agreed with the lead decision that the order for Freshwater to remove the Bible from his desk was invalid. He, too, said the religious books Freshwater had obtained from the school library and the posters did not rise to “good and just cause” for Freshwater’s termination.

Pfeifer also argued court should have considered the constitutional free speech issues raised in the case to provide guidance to school boards and teachers in the state.