CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., (ABP) — The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower-court ruling Monday that it is unconstitutional for a Tennessee school district to allow devotional Bible education in the classroom.
Sue Porter, superintendent for the Rhea County School District near Dayton, told Associated Baptist Press the ruling was somewhat expected. “Everyone was very disappointed, both on the school board and in the community, but it was not a surprise because of prior rulings,” said Porter, who is also a lawyer.
The suit was filed anonymously by the parents of two students in the Rhea County school system. The church-state separationist organization Freedom From Religion Foundation joined the fray as a co-plaintiff.
Dan Barker of FFRF said he and the other plaintiffs are happy with the court's decision. “The principle of church-state separation is a real thing,” he said. “[The parents] believe religion is a private matter.”
The original ruling, handed down by U.S. District Judge Allan Edgar, stated “public school elementary students are being taught what might well be a Sunday school class in many of the Christian churches in Rhea County.”
In what the school district called Bible Educational Ministry, Bryan College students taught weekly 30-minute classes at three area elementary schools, in which students memorized Bible verses, acted out biblical stories and sang Christian children's songs, according to the 2002 ruling.
“The curricula were cut and paste from what you would get from a fundamentalist evangelical Christian church,” Barker said.
Travis Ricketts, director of practical Christian involvement at Bryan College, oversaw the student teachers. According to the decision, faculty at the elementary schools did not review the curricula.
Porter said the classes, which had been taught in the rural school district for over 51 years, were centered more on character development than biblical instruction. Not until the lawsuit was filed was any objection raised, she said. “We used sources other than the Bible, and they were completely voluntary,” she added.
Porter said the school district has not yet decided whether to move forward with another appeal.
Dayton and Rhea County, Tenn., are famous as the site of the Scopes trial, about the teaching of evolution in public schools. Bryan College is named for William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the trial, who defended the teaching of the Bible and creationism in public classrooms.
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