School’s Devil Logo Sparks New Lawsuit : Mascot: Mission Viejo student was denied free speech when he was disciplined for wearing devilish emblem, it contends. Teacher cites teen’s attitude.

Mission Viejo High School’s old Diablos mascot, an image that has bedeviled school officials for years by drawing unwanted controversy and community criticism, is again the subject of a lawsuit.

Jeremy Carlucci, 17, and his parents filed suit Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court, claiming that the senior was denied his right to free speech when he was purportedly disciplined for wearing the school’s discontinued logo, which features a fearsome, red-faced devil.

In response Tuesday, Carlucci’s former teacher, Terry Sheppard, who is named in the suit, said the student’s problems were caused by classroom attitude and truancy, not the devil emblem.

This is the second time the oft-debated devil logo has found its way into litigation.

Last spring, seven students sued school officials, contending that their rights were violated when hats and garb sporting the devil image were confiscated. The logo was banned in 1986 after some Christian community members complained that the devil image represented evil.

The latest suit contends that Carlucci was harassed by Sheppard, who allegedly threatened Carlucci with lower grades and endangered his graduation because he wore the devil logo on a letterman’s jacket.

The student’s mother, Tamara Carlucci, said the situation continued to sour, forcing the varsity wrestler to transfer to another school. That led to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.

“This teacher basically just slammed the door shut on my son,” she said. Sheppard “saw the logo as an ‘in-your-face’ message, I guess, and he just blasted Jeremy. We couldn’t understand what Jeremy had done wrong, so we couldn’t leave him in that class.”

Sheppard helped organize a September school election that allowed students to vote on a new school mascot. A lighthearted, cartoonish baby devil won the election as the new mascot.

However, two weeks later, trademark problems forced the school to reconsider the matter, and Mission Viejo High Principal Robert Metz says the baby-faced logo, similar to “Hot Stuff, the Little Devil” comics book character, is now in limbo.

A few days after the vote, according to the suit, Carlucci was sent to the principal’s office for wearing the old emblem. The plaintiffs argue that the incident triggered further reprisals from Sheppard, who they say took the jacket’s design as an insult.

Sheppard denied those claims Tuesday, describing the young Carlucci as a “behavior problem.” Class attitude and truancy, not the devil logo, led to a tense confrontation with Carlucci’s parents, Sheppard said.

Metz, who was named as a defendant in the suit, declined Tuesday to comment on the case. “I haven’t seen it, so I can’t really speak to it.”