Bewitched

Ryan H. Sager from the April 2000 issue

A North Carolina high school teacher is fighting to regain her job after being suspended for practicing the pagan faith Wicca. Shari Eicher, an 11th-grade English teacher at Scotland High School in Laurinburg, North Carolina, told Reuters news service that she had been escorted off campus by school officials and suspended indefinitely after administrators learned of her religious beliefs. She intends to appeal her suspension, and has contacted the North Carolina Education Association, the state's largest teachers union, for legal help.

Currently, neither Eicher nor the school board will comment on the issue. "I do my job the way it is supposed to be done," Eicher told Reuters in January. "My students learn what they're supposed to learn. What I do in my private time and how I worship my concept of deity are none of their business."