Below is a article that I forgot to post from a while back. It was relevant to me because it was a court case involving a teacher from my high school.
Facts of the case: The teacher had "inspirational banners" up in his classroom with religious connotations in it such as "One Nation Under God" and "In God We Trust" and the school district ordered him to remove them from his classroom because those sayings didn't reflect the district's image, the district didn't represent Catholicism. So the teacher sued for 1st Amendment violation of rights. He won initially, but lost at the circuit court of appeals. The final ruling being that the teacher was under the district's employment.
So the issue or question that I want to raise to you all is: what stance do you take on this issue? Should the public school teacher still have free speech rights since it is a public school or should it be limited because he is working in a educational institutional and shouldn't exhibit his beliefs on teenage students?
District to appeal ruling on classroom banners
Math teacher’s signs refer to God
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
POWAY — The Poway Unified School District will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that school officials violated the constitutional rights of a high school math teacher when they ordered him to take down classroom banners that referred to God.
The Poway school board voted last night to appeal U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez’s ruling that Bradley Johnson’s First Amendment rights were violated and that he be allowed to rehang the banners, which included the phrases “In God We Trust,” One Nation Under God” and “God Bless America.”
The district had claimed that Johnson’s banners advocated a Judeo-Christian point of view that was not appropriate given the nonreligious mission of public schools.
Board member Jeff Mangum said that while nobody on the board objected personally to the content of Johnson’s banners, allowing them in the classroom could open the door to other questionable material. “I’m religious, I’m conservative … but if this is allowed, what else can go up on the wall?” Mangum said.
Johnson, who was at the meeting but did not address the board, said he has put up banners in his math classroom for more than 20 years “to celebrate and acknowledge our heritage.” He said he is prepared to take the matter to the Supreme Court.
“The banners are inspirational to others and to me,” Johnson said. He put the banners back up in his Westview High School classroom after the Feb. 25 ruling.
In his ruling, Benitez said the district allows other teachers to post materials on a variety of topics without penalty and said the district’s action against Johnson amounted to discriminating against a particular point of view, which courts have said is not permitted.
District officials said the judge’s ruling is based on the legal test of “limited open forum,” which is usually used for student groups, not employees. “We think the judge used the wrong legal test,” said Bill Chiment, associate superintendent.
The district does not want to sanitize the environment and prohibit teachers from putting anything up, but the ruling “would open up the floodgates” of what employees could hang on classroom walls, Chiment said.
“Reasonable people can see things differently on difficult and challenging issues,” said Superintendent Don Phillips. “It’s not the posters, and it’s not Brad Johnson. If we create the forum, where do we draw the line?”
Chiment said the case will now go the 9th District Court of Appeals. “We anticipate that the 9th District will confirm that we made the right decision.”
I find this topic very interesting because there are definitely two different ways to see it. Initially I would have been in favor of the school teacher, that he has the right to display what ever he wants to in his classroom. I think the 1st amendment right of free speech is very important and should not be violated in any sense. However, I can see how the material referring to religion could be problematic in the perspective of the district. These sayings about God are very bold and could easily influence children who are still figuring out their religious beliefs. Parents might be upset at this if it goes against their beliefs and what they are trying to teach their children. In the end I think that the final decision from the circuit court of appeals was correct and the public school setting was not appropriate for these banners.
ReplyDeleteI also found this topic interesting. I think we also have to be mindful of establishment of a religion. The First amendments said that "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." However, many people can play on the belief that not having the ability to express a certain religion doesn't abide by the freedom of religion.
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