It’s in Mississippi, of course, perhaps America’s most benighted state. Although the news is a bit late (this was reported three weeks ago), it’s timely in representing the never-flagging forces of religious indoctrination in my country:
From The Raw Story:
A high school in central Mississippi allegedly forced students to watch a Christian video and listen to church officials preach about Jesus Christ.
The American Humanist Association’s [AHA] legal center filed a lawsuit against Northwest Rankin High School in Flowood on Wednesday, accusing the school of violating the student’s First Amendment rights.
The school has held at least three mandatory assemblies about finding hope in Jesus Christ this month, according to the lawsuit. The assemblies showed a video laced with Christian messages about overcoming personal hardships through Jesus Christ and were allegedly led by local church officials.
“See, before Jesus came, innocent blood had to be shed for our sins,” one of the church officials allegedly told the students. “There had to be an animal that was sacrificed toatone for our sin. There had to be innocent blood. So Jesus came and he was the innocent blood because he lived a perfect life. He was that innocent blood. See the last few years of Jesus’ life he traveled from region to region and country to country and he had 12 disciples that followed him everywhere. And he talked about the hope he was bringing.”
The assemblies concluded with a prayer and teachers blocked the exits to prevent students from leaving, the lawsuit claimed. A disillusioned student videotaped one of the assemblies.
The Christian News (whose story is called, humorously, “Humanists fuming over high school assembly offering hope in Christ to troubled teens” gives a bit more information (by the way, Jews, nonbelievers, and even Christians who support the Constitution should be fuming, too):
According to reports, on April 9th, a representative of Pinelake Baptist Church participated in a student-organized assembly that included a video dealing with teen problems, such as premarital sex, drugs, cutting, suicide and other issues. The two individuals featured in the film explained that they were able to overcome their struggles through the power of Jesus Christ. The presenter also spoke to students about the hope that is found in Christ, and led students in prayer.
That, of course, clearly violates the First Amendment, for the assemblies were held during school hours and were mandatory for the students. Given that, who organizes the assembly is irrelevant. (The school disagrees that it was mandatory.) A voluntary student-promoted presentation after school hours would, I think, have been legal.
The Appignani Humanist Legal Center in Washington, D.C., a branch of the the American Humanist Association, nonetheless sent a letter to school officials, rebuking them for permitting the event.
“This practice is unquestionably a serious violation of the separation of church and state required by the Constitution,” the letter stated. “Pursuant to Supreme Court precedent, the school’s sponsoring of and affiliation with, as well as endorsement of, Christianity through this event was unconstitutional.”
“It is sufficient that the presentation was school-sponsored and held on school grounds during class-time,” it continued. “The fact that this event was mandatory, and was promoted by the school principal only compounded the Establishment Clause violation.”
The Center then demanded that all events of similar nature be terminated, insinuating that a lawsuit could be filed against the school if it refuses to act.
“The event promoted by this school was conducted during class-time and was mandated by the principal. It has hard to imagine a more blatant violation of the Establishment Clause than the one complained of herein,” it stated.
Over at The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta has posted part of a transcript from one assembly; the link to the lawsuit filed by the AHA is here. Read it only if you can tolerate stuff like this:
We are here today to tell you where we find our hope. We find our hope in Jesus Christ.
As I say that I know some of you go, ‘Yeah I know who Jesus is and I’m not really… I’m not about that life.’ And we know it is not cool for us to stand up here and tell you that we follow Jesus. We understand that. But that’s okay. Because we care about you so much that there is no way that we could graduate from high school and have a hope that we believe is for our eternity and not share it with you guys. How selfish of us would that be. That we know there is a life changing hope out there and we not share it with you.
The heartening thing is that one of the plaintiffs is a female student—a 16-year-old junior, and clearly a very brave one. She’s identified in the lawsuit as “M.B., a minor by and through her next friend, Alexis Smith” (Smith, 18, is a member of the AHA). You can imagine what ostracism M. B. will experience should her name go public. Do we have another Jessica Alquist here?
In other related news, I haven’t forgotten about the execrable incursion of Christian teaching into a science class at Ball State University in Indiana. (Ball State is a public university, which makes it an arm of the U.S. government). Although both P. Z. Myers and Larry Moran have weighed in, arguing that, in the name of academic freedom, a science teacher should be able to tell his students whatever he wants in a science class, I disagree. To quote Larry, “I defend the right of a tenured professor to teach whatever he/she believes to be true no matter how stupid it seems to the rest of us.” (Of course both Myers and Moran deplore shoving Christianity down students’ throats in a science class, but hey, that’s academic freedom!).
Well, I think lawyers know the law better than do professors, and Constitutional lawyers disagree with the “right” of college professors at state universities to teach religion in science class. We’ll have more about that soon.
h/t: Barry
I am glad to live in a country where school curricula are set by the national government and by elected schoolboards and so.
I meant instead by elected school boards
I suspect there may be some less than happy Hindus also. Mississippi’s one Hindu temple is located either in the same community or the one immediately next door.
But…but…they are devil worshippers (as explained to me a by a pastor less than a week ago)
And, as such, can expect no legal rights. Just like George Franklin intended.
No, I believe it was Dolly Madison.
…or Little Debbie. Now I can’t remember.
I’m glad that joke worked. I envisioned several replies asking who George Franklin is.
I was first going to say “no… I believe that would’ve been Roosevelt Franklin.”
I invite you to make up a few better rhymes in that song above.
This is so awful. I remember living through this in less enlightened times as a student and it makes you feel physically ill to endure it. I remembered my parents complained that it would be fine if they were teaching world religions but they were instead inviting Christians to indoctrinate. The teachers said they had no choice.
Even in high school some Christian rock group came to a mandatory assembly. Blech! I hope those girls’ names remain private because it would be terrible for them to endure what Jessica Alquist went through.
Yes, I experienced the mandatory assembly in high school that featured a christian rock band playing secular cover tunes. The group didn’t proselytize or reveal their religious convictions until the invited (and voluntary) evening show, which I attended with friends. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what a clever scam the school administrators had pulled on a very naive audience.
Oh your Xian rock experience was worse because these guys stopped performing to give their Jesus message during the day so I knew better. 🙂
I am a public school teacher and in educational institutions it is not a question of academic freedom when you teach science, it is a question of staying within curriculum guidelines which are usually based on traditional scientific concepts. If a university offers a science class it should offer a class based what is accepted within the traditional discipline and include speculative thought within that the tradition scientific realm but not religious discourse or concepts which are fantasy. I can not be hired to teach a course in History and then decide to formulate a curriculum based on the history Middle Earth and Mordor. That is not freedom . That is academic abuse. Would Moran or P.Z be anxious to support courses in Science about fairies and leprechauns?
The issue at Ball State is not about whether the content is up to academic guidelines. The question is is it legal in regards to the establishment clause of the constitution? For K-12 education in public schools there is ample court precedent that the answer would be ‘no’. If that astronomy course were taught in a high school it should be an open and shut case. I am not sure just yet about how the Ball State case would be handled because I know of no precedent. Universities might be given more leeway.
The Ball State class in question is offered as an elective and as far as I can tell, is not required for any degree program. So there may not be any curriculum guidelines to follow here. Whether students taking this particular elective earn science credit or a humanities credit is unclear. But from what I can discern, it does seem like more of an academic freedom issue than an establishment clause (i.e. constitutional) issue.
I don’t see why. While the SC has never addressed the issue beyond high school, there is no reason to think that public universities would have more leeway than lower public schools. If public monies are being used to promote a certain religious viewpoint, I would think there is a case to be made. An Indiana taxpayer would almost certainly have standing to bring a suit and from there it would depend on the specific facts of this particular situation.
I do think there is a case to be made. But does anyone know of a case where a public university has dealt with this issue? I have not heard of one. Maybe it has never been dealt with before (!) or maybe it has been, and for some reason tossed out or found to be permissible for some reason. As I recall it, it was odd that the chair of this department did not seem that concerned about it.
I’ve been a practicing lawyer for more than 33 years and understand First Amendment cases as well as most of my peers. If some Ball State student came to me and wanted to sue the University regardng the content of that elective astronomy course, “Establishment Clause violation” would not be the first theory of liability / cause of action that I would pick to state in the complaint.
Yes, there is state (government) action, because a state-supported university has hired the professor and given him resources with which to present the course (a course that he, not the university, designed). But there is no coercion or compulsion, because no B.S.U. student is forced to take that course.
A better cause of action might be for misrepresentaton: The university offered this course as a science course, for science credit, under the aegis of its physics & astronomy depatment, but the content of the course turned out to be creationist / ID “telelogical” garbage, thereby wasting the plaintiff student’s time and money.
This would not be an easy suit to prosecute, to get past a motion for summary judgment . . . . especially if the plaintiffs’ attorneys were foolish enough to “lead” with a constitutional claim.
The university is currently trying to raise money for a big, fancy new planetarium. If that professor and his course were seen by the University poo-bahs as having a negative impact on fundraising, I’d bet that his course would be moved immediately to the “humanities” or “folderol” department.
Sorry for the bold-font closing fail.
So, in your view, it’s OK to spend taxpayer money to promote a particular religious vew, as long as no one is required to attend? That means it would be fine to have a Christian revival in a high school as long as attendance weren’t mandatory? Actually, no one is required to attend public high schools either, there is homeschooling, private schools, and students can quit school. I don’t see that the fact that Ball State students aren’t required to take that course makes the slightest difference.
I expect the prayer will be led by “Monsieur” Calvin J. Candie. Deo vindice trumps modernity.
I suppose most American readers of WEIT would assume that such forced religious indoctrination could only exist in the southern backwaters of the USA and certainly never in the more enlightened, secular world of Great Britain.
Wrong!
In the UK we have no separation of church and state, we have an established church – the Church of England (COE). Over 30% of the primary schools in England are such “faith schools”….. but they receive their funding directly from the government- from taxpayers. The criterion of selecting students is almost wholly on the basis of adherence of the family to Christianity with a smaller percentage for other faiths and a few spots for the odd atheist or two.
Now the reality of the situation from the situation in MY family. I have two grandsons, Ned and Jimmy. To get them to have any real chance of getting into either of the two good schools in their London neighbourhood (both COE) their parents (both atheists wishing a humanist education for their children) must pretend to be Christians, must attend church weekly (where their attendance is monitored), must “freely” contribute” donations to the church, must help in church activities. If they pass these tests and get school admission the children must attend religious assemblies and get a full blast religious indoctrination. So the choice is stark, become total hypocrites and lie about their beliefs or have their children get a far poorer education away from their neighbourhood. If “lucky” to get a place for their children they then face the certainty that the children will be indoctrinated. Trying to counter the indoctrination might lead to “discovery” of the lie of the parents, with the possible consequence of the children being expelled. Our solution as a family- pay for private education (though as taxpayers we are also paying for religious schools to exist).
I discussed this appalling situation at the Humanist Society, which is trying to break up this system (something that will never happen in our lifetime). I suggested the only solution was to establish Humanist schools funded by the government (this is allowable), which would be open to all. The response – as they do not believe in the system they don’t want to be a part of it in any way. Thus the price of their high moral stance is the indoctrination of rationalist’s children.
For Americans, thank your lucky stars for the 1st Amendment and the enlightened framers of the American Constitution. Better to be an American atheist in Mississippi than one with children in “enlightened Britain”.
This Yank’s gob has been duly smacked.
I can hardly believe this is the same country I went to school in. My parents never went to church and the subject never came up. We had one weekly ‘religious knowledge’ class (taught by a bored teacher) on which no examinations depended and which nobody took literally. (I think a mild dose of C of E may be a good inoculation against fundamentalism).
Either the whole place has turned to shit since I lived there or you’re singularly unfortunate in your choice of domicile. If you think you’d be better off in Mississippi then I suspect the latter.
A month or so ago my middle-schooler came home with an assignment from the English teacher to write an essay on one of five topics. All five topics revolved around the student’s reaction to, fondness for, joy in, a certain holiday. Easter, doncha know.
My child, who isn’t xian, dithered around in class for 15 minutes and had a whispered conversation with another student about what to do. The other student finally raised her hand and said to the teacher, “But _____’s family isn’t christian.” “Oh, write about some other holiday then.”
I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t the first parent to complain to the school. I’m less pleased to say that the teacher got away with it because had written the assignment on the board and then carefully erased it. No paper trail. She denied that all of the assignments were Easter-centric.
Forgot to add: I live in a very blue state.
This shit is everywhere.
To qoute the late, great folksinger Phil Ochs, in the refrain from one of his songs, “Here’s to the State of Mississippi!” (about racism and Mississippi’s battle against the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s):
“… Mississippi get youtrself another country to be part of!”
Nina Simone had an even more succinct song: “Mississippi Goddam”
We must keep in mind that in the USA, a science teacher may not advance religion in class. Students, however, do have the right to answer a question in science class by advancing a religion. That is not prevented by any legislation we have now. A student who gives a religious answer can be put down by a teacher, and there I totally agree with Myers. Preventing this open speech is a travesty. Other students have the same freedom. I advocate having students speak freely in high school classes. High school biology would be the most exciting class in high school.
And have the most wasted time, debating religious concepts instead of learning science. And in public universities, which is the subject under discussion, not high schools, such discussions waste not only students’ time, but their money. I doubt many students are paying for science classes in order to enjoy the excitement of debating religion.
I have taught evolution in high schools, Cornell for many years, and post graduate school. The time was never wasted. You are willing to waste the time of religious students. I think your comment is mean to the students who believe in gods that interfere with evolution. So you just favor keeping them the same way? Do you treat them the same outside of school the same way? How sad if true.
What does that even mean? You are wasting the time of religious students by teaching them science? No, you are wasting every one else’s time by letting them spout off about their religion. I just don’t believe science class is the place to debate religion, and I would not have been happy to have been in your class if that’s what went on. Why is it your place to “keep them the same way,” or change their ways, or have anything to do with their religious beliefs? Debating those beliefs has no place in the classroom at any level.
It’s a fricking *science* class isn’t it? They’re there to learn science, not comparative theology.
Now if it was a theology class then a student trying to explain why evolution renders the theology wrong would be equally out of line.
Either way the kids’ learning time is being wasted and the teacher should shut it down.
Totally agree! There was a Jehovah’s Witness girl in my elementary school who used to do that. Most teachers accommodated her out of some sort of fear but the best ones were the ones who told her to back off. The problem was she wasted most of our time because most of the teachers let her do so.
Subscribing.
“There had to be innocent blood.”
That says everything that needs to be said about Abrahamic religion.
“And we know it is not cool for us to stand up here and tell you that we follow Jesus. We understand that. But that’s okay. Because we care about you so much that there is no way that we could graduate from high school and have a hope that we believe is for our eternity and not share it with you guys. How selfish of us would that be. That we know there is a life changing hope out there and we not share it with you.”
This is just some of the smarmiest, most disingenuous garbage. This is two things: narcissism and fear of “the other”.
“If everyone were just like me, everything would be fine!”
And that they know what is best for everyone. Christianity love bombs like any other cult.
Yes, indeed. I think “narcissism” subsumes the two additional characteristics you give.
Not to mention doublespeak: it is actually selfishness motivating them to manipulate others to consider their Christian ‘generosity’. And who in America needs to be educated about Jebus anyway? It is not like such beliefs are unknown by most people.
“See, before Jesus came, innocent blood had to be shed for our sins,” one of the church officials allegedly told the students. “There had to be an animal that was sacrificed to atone for our sin. There had to be innocent blood.”
I think these people need to read more Sophisticated Theology.
If anyone were ever in any doubt about the primitive core of Christian doctrine, that loathsome statement puts it in a nutshell. How much more barbaric can you get? I see no essential difference between this and the Aztec notion that human beings had to be sacrificed to ensure that the sun continued to rise every day. The gods are thirsty for blood, and “innocent” blood tastes best of all.
A public apology, to the students for the violation and to their parents for breaking their trust in the school as an educator, would also be in order.
Holy Shit! You mean to say that simply sacrificing a goat, chicken, whatever, was sufficient?! And that instead of sticking with that people actually decided that going the Christian route was better?! That was the stupidest most masochistic decision ever made in the history of human kind.
PZ supports the prof teaching creationism? Wow.
“The heartening thing is that one of the plaintiffs is a female student—a 16-year-old junior, and clearly a very brave one. She’s identified in the lawsuit as “M.B.. .”
She has since outed herself. She’s not even an atheist, but a student who read the constitution and thought it meant what it said. Silly, I know.
It would be nice if we could convert her to atheism, but no need; lots of folks in her town are working really hard on it. Once you’ve experienced the Love of Christ for yourself, it has a way of changing your whole outlook on life.
“premarital sex, drugs, cutting, suicide”
What is “cutting” in this context?
It most commonly occurs during adolescence and involves making shallow cuts on the arms legs and abdomen usually with a razor. It is usually a response to emotional distress. In some circles it has actually become trendy to cut and therefore may not actually indicate a psychiatric disorder.
I’d say cutting oneself because it’s ‘trendy’ was a pretty good indicator of psychiatric disorder, myself. Or terminal stupidity, one or the other… 😉