High school calculus teacher Bradley Johnson decorated his room with enormous banners containing "In God We Trust," "God Bless America," 'God Shed His Grace on Thee," and other similar messages his school required him to remove. He filed suit claiming the constitution guarantees his right to display the banners, and the trail court agreed with him. In a forceful opinion released yesterday, however, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, emphasizing that Johnson does not have a First Amendment right to present to students his religious views while performing his public duties as a teacher.
Here are some key highlights from the decision:
We consider whether a public school district infringes the First Amendment liberties of one of its teachers when it orders him not to use his public position as a pulpit from which to preach his own views on the role of God in our Nation’s history to the captive students in his mathematics classroom. The answer is clear: it does not.
When Bradley Johnson, a high school calculus teacher, goes to work and performs the duties he is paid to perform, he speaks not as an individual, but as a public employee, and the school district is free to “take legitimate and appropriate steps to ensure that its message is neither garbled nor distorted.”
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we conclude that there is no legitimate question as to whether the school violated Johnson’s rights—it did not.
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his after-the-fact statements merely reinforce the obvious. One would need to be remarkably unperceptive to see the statements “IN GOD WE TRUST,” “ONE NATION UNDER GOD,” “GOD BLESS AMERICA,” “GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE,” and “All men are created equal, they are endowed by their CREATOR,” as organized and displayed by Johnson and not understand them to convey a religious message.
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nothing in our holding today prevents Johnson from himself propounding his own opinion on “the religious heritage and nature of our nation” or how “God places prominently in our Nation’s history.” “Subject to any applicable forum analysis, he may [generally] do so on the sidewalks, in the parks, through the chat-rooms, at his dinner table, and in countless other locations.” “He may not do so, however, when he is speaking as the government, unless the government allows him to be its voice.”
