This is a list of very bizarre education and legal system horror stories through time, explaining how the systems had gradually devolved into madness.
Education
1. In 2004 (harkening back to vintage days), a Punxsutawney, Pa., high school tried to intimidate student Melissa Donovan's FISH Bible club into meeting strictly before school and never during the extracurricular activity break. To make matters worse, according to reporter Bill Wilson's book WARSHOD, the club was strictly forbidden from making appearances and posting flyers on the bulletin board, all because it was a religious student organization. Different (secular) clubs could advertise themselves on the bulletin board and gather during the free activity break.
According to Wilson, Donovan's parents wanted to keep the club going and didn't think much of going down without a fight for the club, where their daughter was the founder of the school's local chapter, could share her faith, and hang out with her friends. They sued the school for Melissa's sake while she stood her ground. The Donovan family actually won the case due to the school's obvious Equal Access Act violation. If the education system were more open-minded to a more Christian/conservative worldview, though, the lawsuit wouldn't have been necessary to start with.
2. In 2012, New York proposed banning "sensitive" words and stories on standardized tests. The massive collection of banned words and story lines included "children going through serious issues," "dinosaur," "birthday," "expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes," "animal shelters," any vaguely "traumatic material," and "in-depth discussion of sports that require prior knowledge." They lifted the bans swiftly because their proposed rules were that ridiculous.
The idea is strikingly similar to "content warnings" as well as the notorious therapy dogs and coloring books that some college students have used, even as late as last winter, to calm themselves down before finals in this era.
3. This year, in Madison, Wis., a high school fed a nonspeaking teenage boy with autism canned dog food, highly representative of the monster the education system has become. It doesn't matter if the dog food was mistakenly OR purposely fed to him. The employee was fired, but the firing must have been a PR response. A possible whistleblower, one staff person, snapped a photo of the dog food.
4. A first-grade teacher in Nashville, Tenn., almost lost his job in February for refusing to read intensely controversial books as expected from the lesson plan. He still works for this charter school, but in a different class. This is not the first time a kind, caring person teaching young children was threatened with losing their job, or lost it for good, for having boundaries and intervening to protect the children, and it is not supposed to be that way.
5. This February, a grown man dressed as a wolf became a kindergarten teacher. Many kids found the furry teacher intimidating and believed he was going to eat them. One kid said, "Mommy, I'm scared he's going to come eat me!" The children thought "he turn[ed] into a wolf at night." He was fired, but children shouldn't need to be terrified of their teachers.
Legal
1. Jack Phillips had two back-to-back court battles in 2013 and 2018 because, for First Amendment and religious reasons, he respectfully declined to design or bake a cake (an art form that may give the wrong impression) celebrating a gay wedding (Charlie Craig and David Mullins) or gender transition ("Autumn" Scardina). While he did win each case, a notable horror part of the 2013 Masterpiece Cake Shop vs. Colorado Civil Rights Commission lawsuit is that he and his staff were almost compelled to attend corporate diversity training and write progress reports of it.
There is another surreal part. It also appeared that one of the two grooms childishly cried to his own mother, Deborah Munn so that she would chew out Phillips and frame him as the real troublemaker. Philips had told them they could buy a cake from another bakery and offered pre-made cakes to them, as actually designing a custom cake would give incorrect signals since he is a Christian.
2. Elaine Huguenin lost her Elane Photography vs. Willock case in 2014, although it was fought in the court battle system since 2006. According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the state of New Mexico strangely tried to gaslight Elaine by saying that "violating her conscience was ‘the price of citizenship'" and wouldn't have cared if she were forced to act against her principles to keep her business running.
The most bizarre part? As of March 2026, a search for Elane Photography only turns up news articles about the court battles and not a business website or many (if any) samples of Elaine's artwork. This suggests that the business was shuttered or had its website taken down, likely because the lawsuit cost too much money to retain the domain and keep the store afloat.
3. Aaron and Melissa Klein won their Sweet Cakes by Melissa vs. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries case after long court battles dating to 2017, but the horror was that their GoFundMe page to fundraise for legal fees got banned. GoFundMe censored the page seemingly because they disagreed with it. In other words, it was apparently out of spite and a difference of opinion. The Klein family did nothing wrong and quite clearly were intending to raise money to pay off legal fees for a lawsuit forced upon them.
4. Cathy Miller has a case that is lagging behind in the court system. Her court battle has been seven years long. She was sued for politely refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake because homosexuality goes against Christian doctrine.
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