COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Wear a Buddha. Wear the Star of David. Wear an atheist evolve fish, even if religious students take offense. Just don’t wear a rosary while attending Mann Middle School.
Administrators of the school, in a city of 410,000 that’s often referred to as the “Evangelical Vatican,” have banned wearing the rosary unless it’s tucked under a shirt. While imposing the policy, administrators have clarified that students may wear any other religious items in a visible manner. They have created confusion about their rationale, telling the media it relates to gang activity and telling parents that it has to do with sensitivity to Catholics who may find wearing of rosary beads offensive. First Amendment lawyers say the case is bizarre, placing the school in danger of losing a potential lawsuit.
The school in Colorado Springs is the second in two months to find itself embroiled in a rosary conflict, as federal judges ruled in September against a rosary ban in upstate New York. Lawyers say they expect more schools to grapple with rosary conflicts as gangs increasingly co-opt the beads as a symbol of unity.
The Colorado Springs ban, imposed in October, has stirred a national debate about the right of a public school to forbid one form of religious expression while allowing all others. The American Center for Law and Justice, an organization that protects religious expression, threatened a lawsuit, and the American Civil Liberties Union told the school it is in violation of the First Amendment.
It has also renewed an old controversy among Catholics, who disagree as to whether it’s permissible to wear rosary beads around the neck.
ACLU Support
Conflict began Sept. 30, a Thursday, when Mann Middle School’s principal, Scott Spanek, took to the school PA system to announce a new policy regarding the wearing of religious items. That’s where the story gets fuzzy.
Cainan Gostnell, a 13-year-old at Mann, heard the announcement and later told his parents the principal had forbidden the wearing of religious items — including his cross necklace. His parents complained, and soon the boy found himself represented by the American Center for Law and Justice in Washington.
School officials sent a written statement home to parents that clarified the policy, dated the Monday after the announcement. The cross was safe, according to the written statement, because the policy would ban the visible wearing of rosaries only. School District 11 spokeswoman Elaine Naleski insists the written statement is what Spanek said over the PA system. It states:
“Students, we need to remind everyone that here at Mann we respect all religious beliefs. Some members of the Catholic faith are offended by rosaries being worn around the neck like fashion accessories. If you wish to wear a rosary around your neck, it must, out of respect for others, be worn underneath your shirt. Failure to honor this request will be treated as a dress code violation.”
Media reports about the ban on wearing visible rosaries brought forth a statement from the ACLU, strongly condemning the policy. Mark Silverstein, legal director for the ACLU in Colorado, wrote: “The First Amendment protects the right of students to express their faith by wearing crosses, rosaries or other religious symbols without interference from school officials.”
Media inquiries to the Diocese of Colorado Springs raised another issue when the diocesan vicar general, Msgr. Robert Jaeger, said rosaries are not intended to be worn as jewelry. The diocese said it “does not oppose” a decision by public schools to ban visible wearing of rosaries.
Print publications and talk radio misrepresented the statement as an authoritative pronouncement that rosaries are not to be worn at all. Msgr. Jaeger clarified that rosaries may be worn with reverence, but should not be treated as cosmetic jewelry.
After the school’s banning of visible rosaries resulted in criticism, school officials told a religion reporter for the Colorado Springs Gazette they forbid the practice only because rosaries have become gang symbols.
“They’re in trouble on this,” said David Kopel, a Denver University professor of constitutional law, speaking to the Register. “If they are doing this because wearing the rosary may offend some Catholics, as they say in a written statement, they are going to get sued and they are going to lose.”
If it’s because they worry about gang symbols, Kopel said, the school remains on shaky ground, but could potentially prevail under the right circumstances.
Reverent Use
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a former law clerk for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and an authority on First Amendment law, concurs with Kopel. Volokh said to ban visible rosaries because some might find them offensive represents a clear violation of the First Amendment, in absence of a dress code that forbids all jewelry and accessories. To ban visible rosaries as a safety concern, Volokh said the school would have to prove a “substantial risk of disruption,” meaning they would need strong evidence of violence inspired by the wearing of rosaries.
“I don’t have information as to whether there has been a problem with violence in the past,” said school spokeswoman Naleski.
Volokh said that the conflicting rationale for the ban of visible rosaries weakens the school’s position even more.
“The fact they’ve changed the story doesn’t make the original or the new one terribly credible,” Volokh said.
Ed White, senior counsel for the ACLJ, said his organization has backed off its threat to file suit on behalf of Gostnell. But that’s only because Gostnell doesn’t want to wear a rosary. He wants to wear a cross, and school administrators have given the student and the ACLJ written assurance that he may do so.
White said he would be eager to bring a case in defense of any student who desires to wear the rosary at Mann and cannot do so because of the policy. He said the school is is likely to lose in court, whether the true concern is gangs or concerns about offending Catholics who don’t want the rosary worn around the neck. He suspects school officials will lose because the ACLJ won a case just like it in September, after a school in Schenectady, N.Y., banned wearing the rosary because gang members wear it. The ACLJ filed suit on behalf of student Raymond Hosier, and a federal court ordered the school to permit him to wear the rosary in plain view. In response, Schenectady school officials amended their policy.
“It’s our view that this discriminatory policy violated our client’s constitutionally protected rights of free speech and free exercise of religion,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the ACLJ, in a Sept. 2 press release.
White, a devout Catholic, said he wore a scapular knotted with rosary decades after a cloistered nun made it for him. He also mentioned that nuns of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who teach at the Catholic school his children attend in Ann Arbor, Mich., wear the rosary around their waists.
“A lot of Hispanic major league baseball players wear the rosary as a symbol of their faith,” White said. “There is nothing irreverent about a Catholic wearing the rosary as a sign of faith.”
Msgr. Ricardo Coronado-Arrascue, diocesan judicial vicar in Colorado Springs, concurred in comments to Catholic News Service that it’s correct that rosaries may be worn visibly with reverence. He said gangs, which have misappropriated the rosary, have used it as an affront to Catholicism.
“To belong to a gang is against Catholic teaching because it involves violent confrontation,” Msgr. Coronado-Arrascue said.
Jimmy Akin, apologist for Catholic Answers in San Diego and a blogger at NCRegister.com, said in the past that wearing the rosary is “a matter of Christian liberty.”
White said even if the Church had a rule against wearing rosary beads, and even if it offended faithful Catholics, it would have no bearing on a public school’s inability to forbid one type of religious expression.
“If a kid shows up in Colorado wearing an Oakland Raiders shirt to school, he will be sure to offend a lot of students who are Denver Broncos fans,” White said. “The First Amendment protects offensive expression. Wearing a rosary, in reverence, should not offend Catholics. But even if it does, the school has no authority to do this.”
Wayne Laugesen writes from Colorado Springs, Colorado.
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This article’s opening line asserts that catholics should take offense if someone wears an “atheist evolve fish”. An evolve fish is not a religious statement. It is an observation on Science, with its continuously growing base of understanding. To blindly assume that anything that isn’t catholic is therefore an offensive affront to catholics is absurdly UnAmerican.
I believe that is discrimination, and they need to fight this. Or else we will start to loose our religious freedom even more.
I am not a lawyer, but if I remember correctly, you do /not/ have freedom of religion in a private institution. However, this is a /public/ school. If somebody expresses their religion in a way that isn’t severely vulgar, it’s allowed by law. It bothers me when I see people mis-using God in a public fashion, but they have the right to do that. Who would I, or anyone for that matter, be to say that just because there is a /possibility/ of people of a /certain specific religious group/ being offended in a /public school/ that there need to be rules regarding non-vulgar religious expression? Don’t get me wrong, I agree completely with the reason that wearing a rosary like jewelry was banned, but the problem is that this isn’t a Catholic school. If it was, I’d be all for this. They’re definitely losing the lawsuit.
I think everyone is missing the point of the ban. The reason they’re banning the WEARING of ROSARIES, not of crucifixes or crosses or medals or anything else, is because gangs in the area have been sacrilegiously using the wearing of rosaries as a sign of solidarity. It’s not an issue of prohibiting freedom of speech; they’re trying to do what they see as the best thing in order to protect their students. If gangs in the area were wearing a certain color, the school would ban that. If gangs were wearing a Star of David, they would ban that too. There’s no way for the school to know who is wearing the rosary with honest reverence with ignorance of how gangs in the area use it or who is wearing it as a symbol of loyalty. The diocese itself said that it supported the ban. Does that not matter to anyone? I come from Colorado Springs and I even WENT to Mann, so I can tell you that if something was wrong here even in the slightest in terms of freedom of expression, the diocese would be all over it. Mann did something like this when I was there, trying to ban certain colors and shirts referring to a band in order to curb vandalism and aggressive behavior. Yes it’s true that one’s religion is different than one’s favorite band, but what I’m trying to say is that they’re not blindly attacking Catholicism here. They honestly believe that they are doing the best for their students, and I have to agree.
Gary writes:
“An evolve fish is not a religious statement. It is an observation on Science, with its continuously growing base of understanding.”
Evolutionary theory and science are not a religious statement or offensive to Christians, but an evolve fish (or Darwin fish) is certainly an (anti-)religious symbol/statement that is patently offensive to Christians. It is a deliberate subversion/satire of an ancient Christian symbol. It says in effect, “Evolution and NOT Jesus is the key to understanding life and human nature.”
An evolve fish isn’t a fundamentally different kind of statement from a picture of Muhammad or a Quran in a red circle-slash. I’m all for having a thick skin and not crying victim, but let’s call a spade a spade.
Re: “they’re trying to do what they see as the best thing in order to protect their students.”
This is probably true. But good intentions on the part of public officials do not empower them to break the law. You know what they say about good intentions.
Re: “The diocese itself said that it supported the ban.”
Not true. The diocese said it “not oppose” the ban.That’s not the same as supporting the ban.
Rosaries should not be worn…period. The rosary is a devotional, a prayer. Not a piece of jewelry. It is disrespectful to wear it as such. Its intent is not to be worn but to be prayed.
April said that “There’s no way for the school to know who is wearing the rosary with honest reverence with ignorance of how gangs in the area use it or who is wearing it as a symbol of loyalty.” As a high-school teacher myself, I see this on a daily basis. When my students enter class with a rosary, I ask them what the Glorious Mysteries are. Shrug. THAT’S how to tell. And no committee meetings, either!
To clarify Gary’s comment, the article does not say the “atheist evolve fish” should offend Catholics. It states “even if religious students take offense.” Big difference.
Jason wrote: “Rosaries should not be worn…period. The rosary is a devotional, a prayer. Not a piece of jewelry. It is disrespectful to wear it as such. Its intent is not to be worn but to be prayed.”
I routinely see Catholics who wad the rosary into a clump and cram it into a pocket or a purse as a tangled mess that is mostly forgotten about. It seems more reverent to wear it around one’s neck, where it is not clumped away and, quite the contrary, serves as a constant reminder of the need for daily devotionals. It’s convenient and completely reverent to wear the rosary. It is also a beautiful symbol of Our Lady’s intercessory prayers and a public testament to the need for daily devotionals. This popular notion that it’s irreverent to wear a rosary seems based in mythology. I cannot find any legitimate basis for it.
If the rosary shouldn’t be worn, then neither should the Carmelite scapular. But if you’re gonna wear it, you oughtta pray it.
I agree with Jason. Having grown up in a Catholic family, we never did wear them as a decoration. Patrick Hubbel, above says that if a rosary should not be worn, then neither should a scapular. My response is this; that a scapular is meant to be worn UNDER the clothing. Not as a show-y symbol. I see teenage kids looking like something that stepped right off of MTV, wearing crosss necklaces and rosaries like they are a status symbol, or they try to look tough. Scapulars are not worn that way. I would actually find humor in kids wearing them in such a manner.
I believe that protecting kids from gangs is paramount in this decision and I personally applaud the school district for working admirably to this end. They have also opted to ban the colors “red” and “blue” from all clothing. Students have been asked to wear those colors underneath other clothing so as not to promote association with the Crips and the Bloods.
Oh… wait.
Elisabeth, you realize that the Carmelite scapular began as an outside garment to keep the dirt of the world from soiling the inner garments, thus the symbolic importance. Dominicans wear THEIR rosary on their cincture.
I don’t think there’s any question about the appropriateness of wearing the scapular or the rosary on the outside, provided, of course, they are worn to remind one of the need to behave oneself so as to not cause scandal. What schools should or should not permit is another matter.
Given the odious fact that despicable people have arrogated the use of such sacramentals to display their affiliation, it has become arguably necessary to restrict their usage in order to minimize trouble.
I say give the kids a test. If they can name at least five mysteries, they get to wear it. To borrow a term from the education establishment, make it a “teachable moment.”
Patrick: Wow, talk about a “teachable moment”. Allow me to me insert this “lesson”—the 1st Amendment to the Constitution starts out exactly like this: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” All of the corollary to the issue at hand is legally irrelevant. Your proposal for a test for kids to name at least five Mysteries to merit wearing a visible rosary borders on the bizarre. Perhaps you should also randomly stop people who are carrying a Bible and ask them to name the first three Letters of St. Paul. If they are unable, would you ask them to stop carrying their Bibles? In my many years as a practicing Catholic, I have seen countless rosaries suspended from rear view mirrors, including my own car. Displaying a rosary in this manner serves as a reminder of who we are religiously, it actively petitions God for safety while driving and it also allows me to quietly project my faith to the outside world. Accordingly, should a person decide to wear a rosary outside his/her clothing, that is his/her constitutional right. When all is said and done, gang activity has nothing to do with religious freedom—and neither do your little “tests”.
Take it easy, Chuck. I was just kidding! I have no intention of conducting catechism in the hallway.
Would it hurt for the entire school to wear a rosary for a week or so? Just to show solidarity with their mis-represented brethren and take the power of it away from the ones who are trying to wear it in the wrong context? Never did I think a rosary would be a symbol for a criminal, but stranger things have happened, I guess.
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