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A public school bus driver who gave out Christian goodie bags to children on her route, then got fired because of it, has thankfully lost her lawsuit against the district.
In August of 2024, Sarah Robinson began driving for the Mattawan Consolidated School District near Kalamazoo, Michigan. By Halloween, she was handing out candy to children. She did it again before Christmas.
As she described it, she promoted Jesus…
… in as innocuous a manner as possible by leaving separate piles of candy at the exit to the bus and children were given a choice whether to choose a bag that contained a short holiday message or a bag that did not contain a short holiday message and students were not coerced into participating or choosing in any way.
The “holiday message” bags specifically included the ridiculous (and debunked) story about how candy canes are shaped like the letter “J” because of Jesus. She also included pro-Christian messaging in those bags. She said her immediate supervisor told her it was okay as long as participation was optional.
But after a Jewish mother soon complained that her child came home with a bag of Christian messages, the school district told Robinson to put a stop to this immediately.
So she went around them.
When Easter drew near, she had her daughter and her daughter’s friend hand out the bags instead. (See?! Not her involvement at all!)
At that point, the administrators told Robinson she had a choice: resign or be fired. She asked if she could keep her job if she stopped, but she had already lost everyone’s trust; the superintendent told her she “could not be trusted not to speak about Jesus again.” They fired her in April of 2025—and they reported her for “misconduct” to the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency. (That was later reversed.)
Robinson pushed back against her firing with some incredibly pathetic responses.
She said the district never gave her “written notice” of any problems, that an investigation into what she did was unfair, that no one interviewed any witnesses, etc. At no point, however, did she deny pushing Jesus on children. What she did didn’t seem to be in doubt. The district simply said it was wrong, and when she kept doing it anyway, they got rid of her.
She said that when the district announced she had been “terminated effective immediately,” it caused her “reputational damage.” Though that was also the simplest and vaguest way of explaining what happened.
She also defended her ability to proselytize by saying the bus was stopped when she gave kids candy, suggesting she was off the clock, making it legal. By doing that, she argued, she was no different from Joe Kennedy, the high school football coach who demanded the right to pray at midfield after games so everyone could watch; the Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
In response, the district asked the court to toss out this case, and they came with receipts including a termination letter that said her supervisor told her “not to engage in the distribution of religious materials,” contrary to the story she had told. They noted that she was warned not to do this twice, yet she continued.
A federal judge has now agreed with the district’s request and tossed out Robinson’s case entirely.
The ruling undercuts everything she said.
U.S. District Court Judge Jane M. Beckering (a Biden appointee) said in her decision “a public-school bus driver does not transform into a private citizen simply because she stopped the bus for children to exit.” Even when the bus is stopped, she wrote, “this phase of its operation—the loading and unloading of children—implicates significant job duties.” In other words, you're not suddenly a private citizen when you're at a red light or you are letting the kids out at school.
That’s why the judge said she’s nothing like Joe Kennedy:
Unlike Coach Kennedy, whose prayer was offered during a time when employees were free to attend to their personal lives, Plaintiff was still on the job when she distributed her religious candy. As indicated, she continued to owe a duty of care related to the safe and proper operation of the bus and ensuring students would safely board and disembark. Her role as a District employee and state actor did not end merely because the school bus was stationary.
Robinson, the judge explained, also intended to give candy to a captive audience: the kids on her bus. Even Kennedy never said he wanted kids to surround him during his prayers. So she was breaking all kinds of laws.
Beyond the merits of the case, Beckering also said Robinson failed to attach exhibits to her motion, failed to name anyone who violated her constitutional rights, failed to make an actual claim against the district, etc. Rookie mistakes, left and right. (Robinson said she was representing herself but had a lawyer help draft her complaint.)
Ultimately, the judge dismissed this case with prejudice, meaning she can’t refile it even if she ever gets her shit together.
Robinson wasn’t fired because she’s a Christian. She was fired because she thought her faith gave her permission to ignore the rules. She ignored warnings, she never thought about the non-Christian parents of the students she drove, she never thought about anyone but herself—to the point that she drafted her own daughter to do her dirty work. Calling her religious coercion efforts “optional” doesn’t erase what she was trying to do.
As any school staffer can tell you, the job doesn’t end when the bell rings or the bus stops. The district had every right to use that fact against her, especially when they gave her every opportunity to save her job. Turns out she wanted to convert kids more than do her job.
That right there is Christian privilege. She felt her message was harmless and even generous. You have to wonder what the public response would have been if a non-Christian bus driver tried pulling the same stunt. The bottom line is that public schools serve children of many faiths and none. It’s not everyone’s job to accommodate one Christian employee’s personal beliefs when she tries to impose them on others.
Any guesses as to which mom would be the first to complain loudly and constantly if a Muslim school employee handed out candy with the tenets of Islam attached?
I love the assertion that she was on the job only when the bus was moving. So creative!