Expelled ‘Limbaugh Boy’ Loses Bid to Return to School

A judge on Tuesday denied a reinstatement request from a student who alleged he was expelled from an all-boys Catholic high school after he accused female faculty members of using “femi-Nazi tactics.”

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Orange County Superior Court Judge Frederick Horn said there was not enough evidence to suggest that 17-year-old Michael Carter of Huntington Beach suffered “irreparable harm” from the action of administrators at Servite High School in Anaheim.

Carter sued the school last month, contending that administrators ordered him to undergo psychological counseling in June after he made the “femi-Nazi’ reference in a speech for school vice president. When he refused to comply with the order, school officials denied his readmission.

Carter said the school’s action amounted to a violation of his free-speech rights.

But Father Gerald Horan, the school’s president, said Carter, his mother and their attorneys have misrepresented what happened.

Carter was not asked to attend counseling because of the “femi-Nazi” reference, but the teen-ager’s statement was reflective “of a pattern of behavior that teachers found offensive and disrespectful,” Horan said.

“Calling female teachers femi-Nazis is a case point of the type of difficulties teachers had with him,” Horan said. “But it was not the precipitating point for this request of counseling.”

Responding to Tuesday’s court ruling, Horan said he “wouldn’t rejoice at anyone’s injury, but I’m glad the court supported our policies.”

After Carter filed his lawsuit, national radio personality and archconservative Rush Limbaugh blasted the Anaheim school in his syndicated program, charging that the teen-ager was being unfairly punished for his political point of view. Carter said he is an avid listener of Limbaugh, who is credited with coining the term “femi-Nazi.”

Horan said that he recently bought and read one of Limbaugh’s books and even wrote to the author “just to clarify the school’s position” on the matter.

Noting that Limbaugh defines a femi-Nazi as someone who subscribes to strident feminism and a firm pro-abortionist position, Horan said: “I can assure you that we do not have teachers advocating abortion. Before they are employed here, they have to sign a contract that if they were to advocate a position in disagreement with Catholic church teachings, they would lose their jobs.”

On Tuesday, the judge denied Carter’s request for a preliminary injunction against the school, saying the teen-ager appeared to have been aware of the school’s action since June, yet he did not file a lawsuit until November.

The teen’s mother, Cecelia Carter, who operates a Catholic bookstore in Huntington Beach, faxed a media release headlined “Limbaugh Boy” to news organizations, announcing that her son would respond to the judge’s ruling at a 3 p.m. press conference.

Carter, who is scheduled to graduate next June from Edison High School in Huntington Beach, said he still plans to continue with the lawsuit. But “it will be more for the principle of it,” he said, because he cannot graduate from Servite.