Does this make sense?

The Coffee Shop
1

With the obvious divide on ST along political ideologies I wonder what you all think about this teacher in California.

Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School
Wed Nov 24, 2004 04:12 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God – including the Declaration of Independence.

Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.

“It’s a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful,” said Williams’ attorney, Terry Thompson.

“Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country,” he said. “There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence.”

Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment.

Phyllis Vogel, assistant superintendent for Cupertino Unified School District, said the lawsuit had been forwarded to a staff attorney. She declined to comment further.

Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.

Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington’s journal, John Adams’ diary, Samuel Adams’ “The Rights of the Colonists” and William Penn’s “The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania.”

“He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that’s what the founders wrote,” said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. “The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination.”

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a California atheist who wanted the words “under God” struck from the Pledge of Allegiance as recited by school children. The appeals court in California had found that the phrase amounted to a violation of church and state separation.

2

The teacher should tell the principal , Give me your purse, I need to remove all those green bills that say "I God we trust " .I feel offended when you check your purse before lunch, being that your a state employee.

3

Depends. If it’s in a historical perspective then there should be nothing wrong with it. Sounds like political correctness being stupid again.

However, if he was forcing his own religious views on his students then he was out of line since this belongs in his church and not in a public school system.

4

Well said. I need more information on how he was teaching the information before I pass my own judgment. Obviously, from the tone of the article, it sounds ridiculous. However, we need context.

5

This teacher is obviously a renegade who should never be allowed to interact with kids. It is scandalous to think that he would hand out inflamatory documents like the Declaration of Independence and the writings of the Founders.

The man ought to be locked up.

Next thing you know, he will be telling the kids that the Pilgrims gave thanks to God at Thanksgiving, instead of the Indians.

6

I am not a teacher and I agree that personal religious beliefs do not have a place in public schools but am wondering in what context someone could be accused of doing so as it relates to something like our Declaration of Independence?

7

There might be a problem if, as it seemed in another story I read somewhere, that the teacher purposely cut out parts of various historical documents that referred to God so that he could specifically teach the founders religious preferences.

8

Logically or rationally, no. There are whole areas of history that cannot be discussed with understanding and discussing the impact of religion. Why did the American revolution start? In part because George III was foolish. How did he end up on the throne of England? In part because his grandfather qualified because he was a good Protestant even though he did not speak a word of English when he became king.

But, given some foolish Supreme Court precedent, you understand why a school district would think this way.

9

First, it’s vrey difficult to understand from this article what was going on. You’ve got a journalist reporting (probably working to a word limit) what some lawyers say took place. It’s an object lesson in why not to take too literally everything you read in the papers.

Second, reduced as we are to divining what took place by looking at blurred outlines, here’s my guess. You’ve got two extremists at loggerheads. On the one hand, I’m guessing that the prinicipal is strongly anti-religion (at least, in a teaching context). On the other hand, I’m guessing that you’ve got a teacher who interleaves his teaching of history with his personal religious beliefs. You can get a hint of this from the para that refers to teaching materials having to be cleared in advance. We can infer that not every teacher at the school is singled out for this treatment, so there’s something (but what?) different about what this teacher’s doing. However, you have to ask yourself what sort of principal gets so worked up as to impose this sort of stricture.

I don’t object to the teaching of religion in religious education classes. I don’t object to educating people about religion in order to put historic events into their proper context - it’s neither possible nor desirable to undertake a Stalinist rewriting of history to erase religion, no matter how strong your feelings run. And you can’t teach someone about something like the Reformation without religious explanation.

But I do object to a teacher sneaking in personal religious beliefs into teaching where it isn’t appropriate. Ultimately it’s a question of degree. I pretty ignorant on American history, so I don’t know how much you can relate about the founding fathers without relating their religious beliefs. Quite a bit, but not everything, I’d guess. What I think would cross the line would be something like “And so George Washington. First President of our country and a firm christian. What a great man”. That sort of statement makes a strong connection between him being a christian and being a great man - tending to give the impression that one is causative of the other. Whereas I’m guessing that his religious beliefs were incidental to his greatness.

Where does the line fall? Very difficult to say in the abstract. Like most questions of degree, you can identify the ends of the spectrum relatively quickly, and give guidance about what goes where in between. But beyond that, it’s tricky.

BTW, like I said, I know little about US history, so if that example is all over the place, just remember that it’s only intended to be an example.