Georgia School Board Petitioned to Protect Religious Rights of Teachers | Christian News Network

A group of residents in Bulloch County, Georgia is petitioning their local school board to protect the religious rights of its teachers.

Bulloch County Citizens for Religious Liberties, led by Pastor Jon Cook, recently requested that the county Board of Education review its religious expression guidelines after emails were distributed throughout the county instructing teachers to cleanse their classroom of Christianity.

“As of today, if you have a Bible verse on your school email and/or Bible verse posted in the classroom, please remove it immediately,” a message received by Cook’s wife, Jill, a teacher at Sallie Zetterower Elementary School, read. “If a student-led prayer is initiated, you must remove yourself and step away from the group.”

Georgia School Board Petitioned to Protect Religious Rights of Teachers | Christian News Network
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So the Saga begins!!

Please note:  I am not responding to the actions of the Bulloch County School District.  What I am responding to is the article and the comments left on the article highlighted here.  The School District has (had) been taking a pro-active stance in this debacle, created by Bulloch County Citizens for Religious Liberties led by Pastor Jon Cook.

What I have found a bit disconcerting is the author's combining of 2 independent incidents into one tirade:

1] A complaint forwarded by Americans United concerning prayer on school grounds and participation by school employees.  What the article does not point out, the complaint filed by AU was from April (2013).  In veiled and inculpative language, the author insinuates the following:

A complaint received by Americans United for Separation of Church and State reportedly sparked the memo, as the group contacted the district earlier this year to take issue with school prayer, including alleged teacher participation.

2]  The district wide e-mail, referenced above, sent to educators concerning religious expression in classrooms.

And you may as well add the faux Christmas card "headache" created by Todd Starnes of Fox News as he also threw in his biased opinion concerning the district e-mail.  The problem with Starnes report concerning the cards, there were no cards posted at the time and there was a privacy issue as well; not a religious one as implied: 

When boys and girls returned from Thanksgiving break, they discovered that their teachers’ Christmas cards had been removed – under orders from the Georgia school’s administration.

Robb Kicklighter’s wife is a third grade teacher at the school. He said many teachers are disgruntled by the school’s decision to confiscate the Christmas cards.

“They took down the cards so the kids can’t see them,” he told me. “Some of the cards had the word ‘Christmas’ and some had Nativity scenes.”

The School District has been clear in their actions and communications with AU as well as the teachers and to this amateur's eyes, it looks as if it is headed to a proper conclusion.

As you know, the Board of Education and I continue to give our full attention to the question of how each of us is able to express our beliefs in our official duties,,,

[,,,]
Initially, I can tell you the following: (1) you do not have to step away or turn your back on student-led prayer. Simply be mindful of your position so as not to appear that you are leading it; (2) you are free to pray to yourself at school and even gather with your peers of like faith to pray when students are not present; (3) you may wear non-obtrusive religious jewelry; and (4) our students are free to learn about different faiths, cultures and holiday traditions in the context of the lessons our teachers prepare. However, because we have been given the responsibility to educate children and with that task comes inherent authority, we do have to limit religious symbols, scripture and phrases on email signatures and in our work spaces unless they are be ing used to teach a cultural lesson or advance some educational purpose. We must always respect student expression of religious views, but we must be neutral with regard to our individual expressions in the presence of students.

What is blatantly obvious, the District's Administrators do not appear to be appreciative of the involvement of the Liberty Institute and one Jeremiah Dys.

As legal counsel for the Bulloch County Board of Education, I have been asked to respond to your letter dated December 5, 2013, contending that the Board of Education is infringing upon the religious rights of its teachers.

At the outset, let me state that is has never been the intent, much less the desire of the Board and its employees to discriminate in any fashion against any employee's exercise of his or her religious beliefs.  That being said, as an Institute with "significant experience regarding First Amendment issues in public schools," you must be aware that such rights are not limitless.

That aside, on to these uneducated comments,,,

"It's fascism [sic] plain and simple,,,"

In order for it to be "fascism" one would have to involve government. Simply defined it is a political ideology with rigidly enforced conservative values and behavior norms. Maybe the word you are looking for is oppressive, intolerant, or dictatorial. But I believe the word this commenter is looking for is "bully." To borrow from George Orwell and his 1944 essay "What is Fascism?"

Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

No one is being bullied here. No one is infringing upon the private religious rights of the teachers. What is being addressed is the perceived support or enhancement of one religion over another as a teacher's "religious speech" may be taken as representing the school/school district (eg. Bishop v. Aronov, 1991).

 "All this happened because an outsider group reared its ugly head,,," 

The only "outsider group" attempting to get involved is Liberty Counsel who sent an unsolicited e-mail to the Superintendent, Charles Wilson, "I write on behalf of concerned citizens to outline the constitutional requirements regarding these issues,,,"  My assumption the "concerned citizens" is Pastor Jon Cook's group Bulloch County Citizens for Religious Liberties

What is sickening concerning Liberty Counsel initial e-mail, the reliance on the erroneous Todd Starnes report as source.   Like Starnes, Liberty Counsel acted upon incorrect information without doing their due diligence.  This should come as no surprise as both Mat Staver (Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel) and Matt Barber (Chairman of  Liberty Counsel Action, an arm of Liberty Counsel) have been frequent guests on Fox News.

I understand the following facts to be true. Citizens of Bulloch County have contacted Liberty Counsel, directing our attention to an article stating that Christmas cards were removed by the District so students wouldn't see them [1],,,

(footnote)
[1]  http://townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2013/12/03/georgia-school-confiscates-christmas-cards-n1756579

[T]eachers do not leave their rights at the door when they come to work every day,,,

I am going to assume the above comment is referencing Tinker v. Des Moines (1969) mentioned by Attorney Jeremy Dys of Liberty Council [sic] in their demand letter to the Board of Education:

It is a foundational principle of American jurisprudence that teacher speech is protected by the First Amendment. See Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969) (“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. This has been the unmistakable holding of this Court for almost 50 years.”) ,,,

In my opinion, what Dys fails to address in regards to Tinker, this ruling is concerned with the First Amendment rights of student NOT teachers.  It also does not address religious expression.  (I only highlight this case due to the fact that Dys takes the ruling so far out of context):        

a]  All throughout the Tinker opinion, it was student led expression of opinion that was addressed not teacher
b]  ",,,[T]he Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in schools."
c]  In Tinker, the students were engaging in "a silent, passive expression of opinion, unaccompanied by any disorder or disturbance on the part of petitioners. There is here no evidence whatever of petitioners' interference, actual or nascent, with the schools' work or of collision with the rights of other students to be secure and to be let alone. Accordingly, this case does not concern speech or action that intrudes upon the work of the schools or the rights of other students.
d]  "In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint." 

That something in this current incident, is the appearance of endorsing one particular religious belief over another.

Ponder me this my dear readers, Mr. Aplesayed has a poster in his room proclaiming, "Allah is the one true God."  Or Miss Wicawich, has a book on her desk entitled "Angelic Zodiac Sigils" and signs her emails "Be one with nature, let Gaia enjoin with you on your path."  How well do you think that would be embraced by these same petitioners?  Would Mr. Dys and the Liberty Counsel be clamoring to be involved?  I doubt it as it doesn't advance their agenda.  You can't have it both ways!

There are many other cases that support the actions of the Board of Education; too many to list.  But one case in particular is listed prominently in the Board's Resources section entitled "Case Law Talking Points (PDF)":

Although a teacher does not give up all of his or her rights to free exercise of religion as a condition of employment, Courts have repeatedly emphasized that the rights of teachers in the public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings. (eg. Roberts v. Madigan, 1990)

In Roberts v. Madigan it was ruled that a fifth-grade teacher was required to remove certain texts from his classroom library and to refrain from silently reading the Bible during an in-class reading time.  Teachers in the eyes of a student(s) are "clothed with the mantle of one who imparts knowledge and wisdom" (referring to Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District, 1994); they are not ordinary citizens.  Any type of religious endorsement during school time or on school grounds, can be seen as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

So in essence, teachers do leave their rights "at the door" just not all of them.

The teachers will win. They are protected under the constitution,,,

Similar sentiment as above but citing the Constitution also brings one caveat.  As contracted employees of the school district they are bound by the dictates put forth by their employers who are bound by the Constitution.  Justice Brennan, writing the opinion of the SCOTUS in Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 582-83 (1987):

In this case, the Court must determine whether the Establishment Clause was violated in the special context of the public elementary and secondary school system. States and local school boards are generally afforded considerable discretion in operating public schools.

[Citing as precedence, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School Dist. No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U. S. 853, 457 U. S. 864 (1982) Brennan continues:]

'At the same time . . . we have necessarily recognized that the discretion of the States and
local school boards in matters of education must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.'

The Court has been particularly vigilant in monitoring compliance with the Establishment Clause in elementary and secondary schools. Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family.

So the BOE was correct when stating:

,,,with regards to all electronic communications between an employee and a student or parent, the employee is representing the District in his or her professional capacity. Given the District ownership of the e-mail account and the policies of the District, it would be difficult to assert that e-mails from employees with religious messages do not constitute an endorsement of religion or at least entangle the District in the subject.

The Constitution wins!

You are seriously confused on what the law of the land is. Have you ever read the first amendment?

Schools teachers and administrators are by proxy government employees.  They are therefore not only protected by the 1st Amendment, they are also bound by.  The rights of a minority (non-Christian believers) cannot be impinged upon by the  rights of a majority.  In others words "mob rule" does not fit.  Just because the "community" believes it has the right to violate the Constitution does not make it the "law of the land."

In the end, Christmas was not cancelled at Brooklet Elementary School or any Bulloch County school.  Just as always, the school followed the protocols set forth in the Constitution and subsequent legal opinions.  Not that anyone  felt the need to report on that aspect of the story.

“Brooklet Elementary School’s (BES) holiday traditions and especially those of Christmas are alive and well,” said BES Principal Marlin Baker. Bulloch County Schools and BES’s administrators have not, nor do they plan to remove any student’s learning experiences about Christmas or any other seasonal holiday. Students across the district returned Monday from Thanksgiving break, and already student’s holiday artwork is going up on bulletin boards, walls and doorways.