Mr. Webb: 0:00

Are teachers' first amendment rights really being violated that often, or is it an issue in a few isolated cases? What should you do and who should you talk to if your rights are being trampled on, and can I stand up for what I believe in and keep my job? Welcome to The Conservative Classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, Mr. Webb, and I'm glad you're here. This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination. Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values.

Mr. Webb: 1:20

Today we're joined by an Arkansas attorney who joined Advocates for Faith and Freedom to fight the good fight and stand up for First Amendment religious and parental rights. Now let's get started. Today, I'm excited to welcome a special guest to The Conservative Classroom, Bethany Onishenko. Bethany is legal counsel for Advocates for Faith and Freedom and she's here to tell us a little about the organization she works for and some of the cases that they are working on. So, Bethany, thank you so much for joining us.

Bethany Onishenko: 1:57

Thanks so much for having me excited to be here.

Mr. Webb: 2:01

And I appreciate it and, if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to Advocates for Faith and Freedom.

Bethany Onishenko: 2:12

Right, so I don't have your national lawyer's. It was more of a thing. I was running from that life. Went to college, majored in political science, knew about just about the only thing you can do with a political science degree is go to law school. But definitely ran from that call. Didn't want to do it but didn't know what I was going to do with my life.

Bethany Onishenko: 2:32

And literally got a call from the law school two weeks before school started and said do you want to be a? Do you want to come to law school? And I said no, I don't. And then they called me back a day later and said hey, what if we give you X amount of money, would you come to law school? And I was like, well, the Lord must be speaking to me.

Bethany Onishenko: 2:48

And so ended up in law school two weeks later and throughout law school just knew I didn't want to do your traditional contracts and you know employment disputes. I knew I wanted to fight for parental rights and religious freedom and free speech. But just living in Arkansas, didn't know how I was involved in that and so graduated law school and searched a job board and found advocates for faith and freedom and I was like there in California. I'm in Arkansas. This is a long shot but contacted the organization and, crazily enough, one of the partners for on our for profit side had actually just moved to Arkansas, and so it was just a total just divine appointment kind of thing. And then got connected with them and just immediately fell in love with their mission to just safeguard constitutional liberties. And so here I am, just a little Arkansas girl working on constitutional issues out of for for a amount of California and just so thankful to be here and, yeah, just working alongside this incredible mission advocates for faith and freedom.

Mr. Webb: 3:51

So it seems like California, the politics in California and the politics in Arkansas. It seems worlds apart.

Bethany Onishenko: 3:58

They are. They are for sure. The way I kind of look at it is if we don't stop what's happening in California and it's going to spread to the rest of the nation and it will impact more conservative states like Arkansas if we don't, you know, nip it at the bud, so to speak, in California. So that's kind of the way I've been framing it. That's helped me to get passionate about what's going on in California.

Mr. Webb: 4:19

So my audience is primarily teachers and parents. What kind of cases and you may not be able to talk specifics, I don't know, especially if some of them are ongoing. But what type of cases do you take that might interest teachers and parents of kids that are in K- 12 school or maybe even college students?

Bethany Onishenko: 4:44

Right. So we kind of take on a wide gambit of cases anything from free speech, so you know, college students on campus being shut down for trying to talk about, you know, pro life issues or their religion or whatever. We can take on those kind of cases. We also take on cases of teachers like you know, jessica Tapio or other similar teachers who have had, who haven't been able to speak up on issues without being fired or retaliated against. So or we have a lot of teachers contact us about, you know, not wanting to use pronouns of choice of their students and that going against their religious convictions. So we take on those kind of cases as well. We also take up anything like. Right now we have a case going on where we have a school district here in California that was sued for banning critical race theory and having a parental notification policy that requires them to tell parents when a student wants to change their gender identity. So the state of California actually sued them over that those policies. So we're in the middle of that litigation right now. So school board policies are in our gambit and our most recent lawsuit actually is very interesting.

Bethany Onishenko: 5:50

We recently filed to challenge SB 277 in California and that bill is what they call the childhood vaccination bill, which requires, you know, california students to have a large number of vaccines prior to entering the education system.

Bethany Onishenko: 6:06

So in California I believe it's somewhat 20, somewhat doses before they can go into kindergarten. And in 2015, california actually took away religious exemptions. So you cannot attend public school if you are not vaccinated and if you have religious convictions that keep you from getting vaccinated, you can't attend public or private school in the state of California. So a lot of Christian parents or people who just don't want to vaccinate their children are being forced to homeschool their children and can't even get an education in the state of California. So we just recently filed a lawsuit against that, seeking to get parents there the ability to get religious exemptions back in the state of California so that their children can't even receive an education in California. So those are some of the current things we've got going on, but, yeah, we just take on a wide range of things and issues that affect teachers in schools and that's what we're passionate about doing.

Mr. Webb: 7:01

It's interesting to me that the areas where the liberals have control, they don't want school choice, and the folks that want the freedom to take their kids elsewhere instead of taking them to public school or homeschool or homeschool co-op or private school or charter school, whatever the case may be, the folks that fight against that are the same people that push all these things on the parents of public school children, that make conservatives and Christians and Christian conservatives, that make them want to pull their children out of the public school system.

Bethany Onishenko: 7:46

Correct.

Mr. Webb: 7:47

It just makes no sense. It's mind boggling to me.

Bethany Onishenko: 7:52

Right. No, it's just insane, and I think that is why you see such a large number of parents pulling their children out of the public school system, or you know teachers just being fired for even having religious beliefs in the school system. So it's definitely become an environment that we never imagined possible, where, yeah, people are just leaving in droves right now, which is because a lot of them do genuinely want to be in the public school system, and so it's heartbreaking to see for sure.

Mr. Webb: 8:22

Now let's go back, if you don't mind, to that case. I want to wrap my mind around this. There is a school district or a school board who is trying to say that you don't have to use the pronouns the students want to use and the state is suing them. Did I hear you correctly on that?

Bethany Onishenko: 8:44

It's actually the state got involved in this. Who's actually suing is a bunch of political activists as well as the Temecula Valley Educators Association, and the state's gotten involved in this as well. But so they're challenging two policies actually. One is that the board is now banning critical race theory from being taught in classrooms. So they've just said, hey, we're not going to allow that in our classrooms at all, and people took issue with that, obviously. But the second policy they're challenging is where it's the parental notification policy. So if a student comes to a teacher and says, hey, I want to transition genders or be called something else, the teachers are now obligated to inform the parents of that decision, and so, obviously, a bunch of LGBT students took issue with that and are now, yeah, suing over it, and so that's kind of where we're at right now with that case.

Mr. Webb: 9:32

But it seems to me that in the areas where teachers are told not to share if they have a student who wants to go by a different pronoun or the student decides to transition, they're telling teachers. In some areas California is a big one, as you well know they're telling that the teachers. Not only is it okay to keep that from the parents, but you have a duty not to share that with the parents.

Bethany Onishenko: 10:04

Right.

Mr. Webb: 10:05

Is that not a huge red flag that there's something wrong?

Bethany Onishenko: 10:09

We've had several cases like that. Actually they're no longer active and got settled beforehand, but we had several cases like that where they were told, hey, teachers were told that you can't tell the parents anything about the students, even in cases where students who were identifying as another identity were staying overnight at facilities with students of the other gender, and they couldn't, the teachers couldn't inform parents of that at all, which is just mind boggling to me. So, thankfully, we have a conservative district in California who was very pro parental rights and just stood up and said we want to be the, you know, the shining light on the hill here in California. We want to be proactive and go against that grain, because the majority, obviously, of districts in California are going towards not notifying parents, and so this district just wanted to stand and be proactive.

Mr. Webb: 10:56

So they passed this policy and now they're they're getting punished for it, unfortunately, but I'm happy for you know the cases that settle or the folks that win at a lower level, but I feel like some of these cases need to just go all the way up to the Supreme Court so there can be a ruling made at that level. Absolutely, that will help all these, these conservative teachers and parents, conservative school districts that are having to do things that right they don't really want to do.

Bethany Onishenko: 11:37

Agreed. These are kind of cutting edge issues and so we haven't really seen any Supreme Court action on this yet. So we're right there with you. We, we want to see these cases and going up to the Supreme Court at some point. They do have to be addressed about what rights do teachers have when it comes to pronoun usage, and you know what rights do teachers have, you know, speaking up for their faith in the workplace, et cetera, those kind of things.

Bethany Onishenko: 12:01

But primarily, yeah, anything regarding LGBTQ right now in a school setting is very cutting edge and we definitely want to take these cases up. So and we're willing to do that, we, we really hope that some of our cases do go that far. Generally we tend to lose in California because California turns very liberal and so lose our cases at the Cal State level or lower court level. But once we appeal up, we generally get more favorable decisions, and so we're hoping that's the case in some of these cases as well that we can just keep appealing them up to, you know, the ninth circuit and the court and get good precedent on issues so that other teachers don't face similar problems.

Mr. Webb: 12:41

So here's something I'm curious about as someone who knows very little about the law, speaking to someone who's an attorney and knowing how these cases. I've talked to Mark Janis on the podcast and coach Joe Kennedy.

Bethany Onishenko: 12:57

Yes on the podcast.

Mr. Webb: 12:59

He's a legend and it seems that and you correct me if I'm wrong here but if you lose at a lower level, it's almost like all right, we can take it up to the next level. And it's almost a good thing, in a way, if a case, you know, doesn't win at a lower level and you have to take it to a higher level because you know, hey, if we get up high enough and win, that's going to help everybody in the United States.

Bethany Onishenko: 13:28

No, that's exactly right and that's how we hope our cases go. You know, we almost to some degree, we generally know again we're going to lose at the California level because they just tend more liberal. And once we appeal up we're actually a little bit excited because then that begins to set precedent for other courts and other teachers, whereas if you get a decision favorable decision at the lower court level it's not necessarily binding on any other courts or any other situation. And so the higher up we go, obviously the ninth circuit precedent would then become binding for California and Arizona and Nevada and states like that. Then, if we can get all the way up to the Supreme Court, whatever decision comes out is then binding on the entire United States. And so you're exactly right, it is a little bit exciting when we get to go up and set precedent for other teachers and other situations besides.

Mr. Webb: 14:09

Just, you know, here in California are there, uh, are there a lot of cases like that and by that that's kind of vague are there a lot of cases about religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, etc. Or is it just something that just happens every now and then? I'm sorry to interrupt you.

Bethany Onishenko: 14:35

No, go ahead.

Mr. Webb: 14:36

I've heard some, some liberals, say I well, this doesn't really happen, that's something that doesn't really happen that often, and I kind of think it does. So you know better than I do.

Bethany Onishenko: 14:51

I think that that argument could have been made, you know, maybe 30 years ago, but I just don't think that stands anymore.

Bethany Onishenko: 14:57

We're just seeing an onslaught of of Cases these days of people just getting their rights trampled on, especially, you know, in states like New York, california, all of these kind of places. But we get just so many requests requesting help of people who are just being shut down or slandered or defamed or punished for expressing their religious beliefs, expressing their conservative beliefs, at just a level We've never seen before, and, I think, particularly since 2020. It's just been even crazier. Covid just started this whole new wave of just down voices that Then what you think should be the voice resounding in society, and so, yeah, definitely in just the last three years, we've had an explosion of these kind of cases, and so it's been really interesting to see and but it's almost been kind of fun for us we can't keep up with the caseload these days, with just how many people we've we've got reaching out for help, which is devastating, but also just unique opportunity and unique moment in history to be able to kind of shape precedent and see where these issues go in the next few years.

Mr. Webb: 16:04

And you guys are one organization and you have so many, so many people reaching out to you, and something else that you hear liberals say is all critical race theory. That's not really being taught. That's just something that the conservatives say. That's not true and we know it is. We also know that they don't call it critical race theory. They just put tenants of that in the curriculum From kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade, and it will obviously even into college. You guys have some of those, do you see? A lot of critical race theory and DEI and yes, we're starting to more and more.

Bethany Onishenko: 16:47

We had a few cases over DEI specifically, as well as critical race theory, but that just never fully came to fruition. But we've had so many reach-outs about these things, especially right now, or just teachers wanting to know like, hey, if my district is offering a diversity and inclusion training, do I have to attend or what are my rights? And so we have been helping people, even just on the individual level, with those kind of issues right now, which has been, which has been super interesting. But, yeah, I think you're correct, they don't, they don't name it what it is, and so sometimes it can, it can kind of fly under the radar CRT and DI specifically, they can just kind of fly under the radar and go unnoticed. But we're thankful when people do kind of start to stand up and wake up and stand up against those things in the schools.

Mr. Webb: 17:31

So I use the analogy that it's like teaching kids how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, but not calling it math.

Bethany Onishenko: 17:42

Right, that's exactly right.

Mr. Webb: 17:47

So Advocates for Faith and Freedom. If you don't mind me switching gears just a little bit, oh yeah. I know we've been talking about some of the cases and some of the things that you're involved in. What is Advocates for Faith and Freedom, and can anybody reach out to you guys? Tell us how that works.

Bethany Onishenko: 18:04

Right. Yeah, so we're a religious liberty law firm. Again, we seek to just defend and safeguard constitutional liberty. So anything again religious freedom, free speech, election integrity, parental Rights, the right to education, for anything pro-life we take on any of those issues. That's what we're super passionate about doing, and anybody is absolutely free to reach out to us. We have a link on our webpage which is just faith freedom comm. Just connect with us and you can request legal help from us, and so even if you just have a small question and want to know what your rights are in any given scenario, or you want to file a case and litigat it, hopefully all the way up to the Supreme Court with us, that's an option as well, and so, yeah, we're just super happy to help anyone who has any questions at all about whether, what their rights are, and you know how to stand up for the conservative and Christian values that we so strongly believe in.

Mr. Webb: 18:58

And I'll make sure and put a link to faith freedom Dot-com is faith dash freedom.

Bethany Onishenko: 19:05

Freedom.

Mr. Webb: 19:05

I tried it both ways. As you were talking, I wanted to make sure you know that I could. I could get the correct link to post.

Bethany Onishenko: 19:12

Yes, we absolutely love. We love education cases specifically because we just love the opportunity to be involved in, you know, shaping the next generation and ensuring that Not only one set of opinions is being taught in our schools and being pushed upon our children. And so, specifically, as mom myself, we I love taking on those cases and knowing that our children are gonna have solid moral leaders within the school system and be taught in a way that isn't, you know, I Press it work.

Mr. Webb: 19:42

And there's a, there's a lot of folks out there, I think, that don't know what to do. Maybe they feel like they're backed into a corner right and, oh, I talked to a lot of folks that they don't like what's going on in the world or going on an education, but they're afraid to speak out against anything because they're afraid they'll lose their job. That's it. That's a very real, that's a very real concern. Can they reach out to faith, to Advocates for Faith and Freedom? Just to just ask a question.

Bethany Onishenko: 20:18

Oh, 100 percent. We we have individuals reach out all the time and specifically in the last few years, have had educators reach out pretty consistently just asking again all these issues hey, I don't. I don't want to use the students preferred pronouns because I don't believe in that what are my rights? And so we just are able to walk them through that and tell them you know how to, how to work with their district on that, etc. And then again, if, if a teacher does profess their beliefs to their district or say they want an accommodation based on their beliefs or whatever, and then the district does act out, we've got a whole nother I like to tell people with their cause of action there and a reason to go to sue them because they can't retaliate based on your religious beliefs or on your conservative beliefs. And so we love getting to walk alongside teachers who, or educators who, or even students who, yeah, are having these issues.

Mr. Webb: 21:08

And I would urge my listeners if there's anything going on in your school or with your child in the school system, yes, that you're uncomfortable with and maybe you're not comfortable speaking out, at least reach out, because they can do that behind the scenes to you guys. Nobody has to know, and at least just you know, just find out, reach out. You know, the worst, worst that can happen is nothing.

Bethany Onishenko: 21:37

Right and we have no worse off than you are right now. Right, yes, sorry to interrupt.

Bethany Onishenko: 21:42

We have lots of resources that we've prepared about almost any given topic that you can come up with about the school system, or about your children in the school system or your rights as a parent. We have just resources, endless resources about these kind of things that we've prepared, that we are happy to send out and happy to you for free. So hesitate to reach out ever you have any questions at all about what's going on in the school systems or even just what rights you have over your child as a parent, etc.

Mr. Webb: 22:09

I usually end the episode with a few key takeaways. So, Bethany, what's the one thing you want the listeners to remember, if they don't remember anything else about this episode?

Bethany Onishenko: 22:22

Right, I like to. We are in such a feel it can feel like a David and Goliath moment in history where there's just little us David up against these big Goliaths like CRT or DEI or transgenderism and LGBTQ issues. But it just takes one person, one David, to be willing to stand up and say, hey, we're not okay with that, to overcome these things. And so I just encourage everybody if you're not comfortable with something that's going on in your school district or with your child, don't hesitate to begin that process and to speak up because, again, you never know if you're going to be the one that's able to help us take down these big giants in our society right now.

Mr. Webb: 23:00

That sounds like great advice and can you share. I already said that I would put a link to Faith-Freedom. com. Is there anything else you want to share with the listeners? I'll make sure and put links maybe it's social media, maybe it's some other resource and also just share with us if you have any upcoming projects, cases, anything that you'd like to share with the listeners. This is your time to plug or promote anything you want to.

Bethany Onishenko: 23:33

Right.

Bethany Onishenko: 23:33

So here at Advocates for Faith and Freedom, we are a nonprofit religious liberty law firm, so we do operate based on donations in the generous support of our donors.

Bethany Onishenko: 23:43

So if you feel led at all to give, we have a link on our website, faithfreedomcom slash donate and that goes directly to our cases into helping us fight things like mandatory vaccinations for school and teachers rights in the school setting, and so we would just be very blessed if any of you felt led to do that so that we can continue kind of taking on these cultural giants. But as far as projects go, right now we're really consumed with primarily a lot of education cases. As we were discussing, you know, we're fighting mandatory childhood vaccinations for school attendance so that we can get more children back into the school system, as well as some trying to uphold some awesome school board policies that we see here in California, and so we're super excited to just keep fighting those. Those are our big ones right now. As well, as you know, we've got some leftover COVID cases that we're still we're still working on right now. But yeah, we would love to have any of you contact us and just reach out for help.

Mr. Webb: 24:44

I was happy to happy to help, and does your organization have like a Twitter, or I guess I should say X?

Bethany Onishenko: 24:52

Oh yes, sounds kind of weird.

Mr. Webb: 24:54

And then also your personal like if you have a Twitter handle or anything like that you want to share.

Bethany Onishenko: 25:00

Yeah, so we are active on all social media platforms. Sorry, I should have said that we are active on all social media platforms Instagram and Twitter.

Bethany Onishenko: 25:08

Slash X now advocates for faith and we are. We try to be really active on there and you can kind of keep up with everything that we're doing on there. I personally am on Instagram as well, but it's not anything exciting. Most of my, most of my Instagram work is done through the advocates account. So, yeah, we'd love to have you join us on social media and just kind of keep up with what we're doing.

Mr. Webb: 25:32

Awesome, and I'll be sharing post links to that too Well. Thank you so much for joining us today, bethany, it's been a pleasure learning about your organization, learning about advocates for faith and freedom, and I know our listeners appreciate just knowing that they not just hearing the stories and hearing that I say often you are not alone to these teachers and you're not. There's things going on all over the country, so if you're in a situation, it's not just you, you're not alone. So please reach out to Advocates for Faith and Freedom.

Bethany Onishenko: 26:07

Yes, 100%. Teachers all over the country are facing these issues and reaching out to us every single day. And, yeah, we're here to provide you with the support and encouragement and all the prayer that you need to get through these things.

Mr. Webb: 26:18

Thank you so much.

Bethany Onishenko: 26:19

Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Mr. Webb: 26:22

That's it for today's episode of The Conservative Classroom. Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. If you liked what you heard, please don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. That would really help the podcast out. Most importantly, share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. You can also connect with us on social media and share your thoughts on today's topic by sending me an email at TheConservativeClassroom@gmail. com. We'd love to hear from you.

Mr. Webb: 27:00

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Mr. Webb: 27:36

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