Here's one of the posters at the center of the lawsuit. (ADF)
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — An elementary school in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., is being sued for censoring the word "God" out of posters promoting a student-led prayer event.
A lawsuit filed March 3 by the Alliance Defense Fund said administrators at Lakeview Elementary School ordered students and parents to either remove signs promoting a "See You at the Pole" event or edit out religious language. With too little time to redo the posters, parents in the suit complied by covering the phrases like "In God We Trust," "Come and Pray" and a theme Bible verse with green paper.
Filed on behalf of 10 parents and the children, the lawsuit claims school officials violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights both by limiting their free speech and establishing hostility toward their religion. It seeks injunctive relief, nominal damages and court costs.
It isn't the first time the school has landed in hot water over religion. Last year a federal judge ruled the school unconstitutionally endorsed religion by allowing a group of parents to pray in the school cafeteria and pass out fliers to students during school hours.
Federal District Judge Robert Echols ruled that such accommodation excessively entangled the school with the religious purposes of Praying Parents, a loose-knit organization of parents who gather to pray for the school. Echols said the Constitution demands that public schools be neutral toward religion and that by promoting the group administrators effectively promoted its religious views.
Echols said students could still make flyers for "See You at the Pole," though. School policy allows such posters as long as they contain a disclaimer that the event is not sponsored by Lakeview.
For that reason, some members of the Praying Parents group said they were astonished last September when a school employee told them that posters their children made could not be displayed because they contained the word "God."
The parents obscured the religious phrases as directed but later complained about what they viewed as censorship and an attempt to belittle their religion. They said their children want to participate in future public prayer events, but now fear reprimand if they do.
"Christian students shouldn't be censored for expressing their beliefs," Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Nate Kellum said in a press release about the lawsuit. Kellum said school officials "appear to be having an allergic reaction to the ACLU's long-term record of fear, intimidation and disinformation" with regard to religious expression in public schools.
Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, said he sympathizes with school administrators attempting to negotiate complicated church-state issues amid competing voices, but based on what he knows about the case, "It looks to me like the school clearly overreacted" by censoring religious content altogether.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.