Written by Don Byrd
How should public school officials protect the religious expression rights of young students while avoiding the appearance of endorsing those religious views and protecting other students from unwelcome proselytizing? Principals, teachers and school boards deal every year with such balancing obligations. When their solution is to prohibit the expression, students and their parents are understandably upset and often seek to enforce their rights through the court system. For reasons that escape me, apparently no form of expression causes more contention than candy canes with religious messages attached.
When a Texas elementary student tried to share with his classmates candy canes with religious messages tied around them in 2003, it sparked a legal battle that has lasted nearly ten years, and counting, adding more plaintiffs along the way. In Pasadena, California last month, school officials were allegedly “hostile and intimidating” in refusing a student’s request to distribute similar candy canes.
Attorneys say when Martinez brought the candy canes to class, [his teacher Valerie] Lu took possession of them and after conferring with school principal Gordon Pfitzer, told Martinez that “Jesus is not allowed in school.”
Lu, at the apparent direction of Pfitzer, then ripped the candy cane message from each candy cane, threw them in the trash, and returned the candy canes back to Martinez for delivery to his classmates, according to attorneys.
School officials have a tough job in balancing the First Amendment freedoms of students, but at this point shouldn’t there be a better plan for handling the student-initiated distribution of material? A candy-cane policy, even? I’m joking (sort of), and of course the description above is an attorney’s one-sided version of events. But students and parents should understand what to expect at holiday parties for young children; they should understand appropriate and inappropriate times to distribute messages. And at appropriate times, those messages should not be prohibited purely because of their religious content.
The outcome of this particular case – if a lawsuit is filed – will depend on the particular circumstances and policies surrounding the event. As Professor Eugene Volokh explains in the Pasadena Star-News report, most similar cases are resolved “in favor of the [student] religious speaker.” Either way, at this point, school officials should be on notice: have a candy cane plan.
