When do candy canes become a threat to the republic? If they’re wielded by a public elementary-school student in Plano, Texas. An appellate court has had to decide whether teachers at a Plano school are immune from suit for taking action against the offending candy canes as a violation of the student’s freedom of religion. The case was recently heard by the full federal appellate court to review the school’s actions.
Although the precise legal issue is arcane — relating to the qualified immunity granted school officials to act in ways that may later be found to be unconstitutional — the case highlights the religion-phobic nature of many of our public schools.
In the case, the school officials had prohibited any religious items during its “winter break” parties, formerly known as Christmas. Indeed, the school had banned using the terms “Christmas” or “merry Christmas” during the winter-break season and prohibited the distribution of any religious gifts. One elementary student had the nerve to prepare goodie bags for her classmates that included pencils that said “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season.” Another brazen child included in his goodie bag a short history of the candy cane, explaining that its shape is derived from the bishop’s crook. A third student — the horror! — was caught discussing a Christian play and distributing tickets. The school not only prohibited such discussions, but confiscated the tickets.
For these antisocial acts, the school and its officials threatened expulsion or other discipline in an effort to keep the school a faith-free zone. The court’s descriptions would be funny if they did not represent such a distorted view of the constitutional law and common sense. The court opinion describes school guards searching through the schoolchildren’s goodie bags and snooping on their extra-classroom conversations. Emperor Nero, that great persecutor of Christians, would have approved.
School districts across the country are terrified of appearing to be less than neutral in matters of religion. So they go to the other extreme and ban all mention of religion in any context.
One cannot really blame the schoolteachers (although Plano has tried to do this type of thing before: banning Christian groups from the school, which was subsequently overturned by the courts, so maybe they can be blamed in this instance for not knowing better). Teachers and school officials are only relying on the confused decisions of the Supreme Court, filtered through a secular media generally hostile to religious expression in public places. On the one hand, the courts have been clear that students have free speech rights and that schools can in fact allow religious expression without violating the Constitution.
On the other hand, the courts have also been firm in insisting schools, as government agencies, not favor one religion over another or religion in general. So many schools go the way of Plano — keep religion out altogether — because even if they act within constitutional boundaries, there may still be a lawsuit.
Religious students should be able to express their faith publicly, even during “winter break,” and no one should confuse candy canes in goodie bags with the school’s endorsement of a religious message. What is more troubling is the replacement of the free expression of religious beliefs not with “neutrality,” but with a secularism that is actively hostile to expressions of faith. When students cannot discuss the historical origins of candy, more is at stake than just a child’s hurt feelings.
Gerald J. Russello is the editor of University Bookman (KirkCenter.org).
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“...[O]nce the state has accepted full responsibility for the education of the whole youth of the nation, it is obliged to extend its control further and further into new field: to the physical welfare of its pupils—to their feeding and medical care—to their amusements and the use of their spare time—and finally to their moral welfare and and their psychological guidance. Thus universal education involves the creation of an immense machinery of organization and control which must on growing in power and influence until it covers the whole field of culture and embraces every form of educational institution from the nursery to the university.”—Christopher Dawson, The Crisis of Western Education
Public schools are right to ban the Christmas. Not everyone is Christian. And a number of religious traditions have a winter religious holiday that is not Christmas. America is composed of diverse peoples of diverse faiths. Christianity does not own the winter holidays. So public schools should be neutral. If Christians want their children to celebrate Christmas in school, they send their children to Christian/Catholic schools. Christians are free to establish their own schools. Christians should not be making an effort to impose their faith (multiple versions of their faith) on the public school system.
Hey, Lisa! Ever hear: “... shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ....” (was “Congress”, but it has been extended to apply to all levels of government.)
Schools cannot, legally, prevent religious the students’ religious expression. It doesn’t matter that not everyone is Christian; the Christians are allowed to be Christians. It doesn’t matter if there are other religious holidays in the winter; the Christians are still allowed to celebrate Christmas. Public schools may be neutral by allowing everyone to celebrate their holidays; they don’t have to deny that specific holidays exist. Christian students are even allowed to proselytize at school (just not to disrupt classes), though teachers may not when they are teaching at school.
You are absolutely right about opening their own schools. But then why must they pay for the other schools? If the government helps buy food, they give you food stamps and you go to any grocery store you want. The government doesn’t establish government stores that everyone must subsidize. If the government helps you with housing (section 8), it doesn’t, usually, run houses that you must live in. (The counter example, city housing projects, tend toward being such hell-holes.) When the government helps pay for health care (medicare and medicaid), you go to your own doctor, and the government pays for them. (A counter example, Veterans Administration hospitals, frequently gets in the news for its poor conditions.)
So why should education be different? Why must there be government run schools that people, especially the poor, are forced into using? There’s a court case in Colorado about school vouchers. The opponents say the state gives money to parents just so they can “get around the constitution,” that parents shouldn’t be allowed to use the money to educate their children in whatever school they wish.
Thirtyninewinks,
I have no issue with anyone’s religion. But why do Christians insist that Christianity MUST be part and parcel of the public school system? Leave religion out of the public scools.
I have no issue with anyone’s non-religion. But Christians are over 50% of the population. Is there a school that has no Christian students? Why do Non-Christians insist that Christianity MUST be excluded from the public school system? Leave your atheism out of the public schools.
The majority of our Catholic Schools are “faith free” zones as well!!
They use secular books for all subjects accept religion. Religion is a class, it does not permeate into all subjects.
It is sad that our countries public schools are not religious, but as Catholics we need to work on improving our schools!
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