Written by Don Byrd
A quick update of a story I have been following here at the blog (earlier post here). A portrait depicting Christ hanging in the hall of a Jackson, Ohio middle school and the subject of a church-state lawsuit, has been moved to the high school. The School District’s primary defense is an argument that the portrait is owned by a student club, and therefore not government speech. The only problem? No members of that club are in the middle school where the portrait hangs.
The Columbus Dispatch has more.
Bob Eisnaugle, an art teacher and adviser to the Hi-Y service club, said that the group of about 60 students decided last week to move the portrait to the high school, where the club meets and where its current members are students. He said the middle-school building housed the high school when the club presented the portrait, and it just never had been moved to the newer building.
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Nick Worner, a spokesman for the ACLU of Ohio, said yesterday that he couldn’t comment on legal strategy, but he stressed that his group’s position hasn’t changed.“It doesn’t matter which public building the portrait is in,” Worner said. “It’s an unconstitutional endorsement of religion on the part of a public school.”
Even as a limited public forum, shouldn’t those who wish to display a picture have to actually be current students in the school where the message is displayed? And not students from 66 years ago, when the building housed an entirely different school?
