The Alliance Defense Fund was vociferous in their critique of Wilson County (TN) school administrators earlier this year, accusing them of covering up religious references in children's posters. Now in court, those officials are finally telling their side of the story. The Tennessean reports:
[O]fficials insisted during the hearing that they were following their policies — rejecting anything that could appear to be sponsored by the school or could cause disruption —when they said the group couldn't hang their posters as-is.
…
"I knew we'd been involved in another lawsuit, and I knew it cost the school system a lot of money, so I wanted to be very careful," (Assistant Principal Bertie) Alligood said.Alligood said she conferred with schools director Robert "Mike" Davis by cell phone, and he told her that posters with anything more than date, time, location and name of the event was not approved.
She also testified that the purpose of the paper she gave the parents was, she thought, so they could make new signs, not to cover language.
The ADF put on a full-court press at the time this happened, arguing this as an example of Christianity under attack in schools, never mentioning of course that this same school had been sued and ordered to pay $171,000 in court costs for giving preference and access to the religious efforts of many of these same parents "in violation of the Establishment Clause."
I was among those who concluded that the school overreacted in its attempt to avoid Establishment Clause concerns. And I still essentially believe that. But the school was not acting in a vacuum, and seems to me have had legitimate reasons to be hyper-cautious, among them a judicial order that was quite clear about See You At The Pole advertisements needing to distance the school from the event. We will see which parties Judge Echols believes crossed the line, if any. Stay tuned.
[UPDATE: An ADF post objects to my description of their March 2009 press release, and fair enough. In their statement, they did in fact "mention" that the school had been previously sued by the ACLU (I apologize for that error), though they claim the judge handed the school a grand victory, a contention belied by the ruling and the $171,000 judgment which of course ADF did not mention in the press release. You can read it here and decide for yourself if their mention of the case accurately portrays Judge Echols' conclusion (pdf) that:
[T]he Praying Parents practices and programs at the school caused the Lakeview administrators and teachers to become excessively entangled with religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Therefore, for all of the reasons stated in this opinion the Court finds in favor of the Does and against all Defendants except the Board itself.
But they are right! They definitely mentioned it! My mistake! Post updated above to reflect the oversight and the judge's true ruling.]
