Teachers Get a Less[o]n in Liberty

Teachers have enough to worry about these days without adding religious intolerance to the mix. But unfortunately for Joelle Silver and Walter Tutka, administrators seem more concerned about their personal beliefs than their professional success. Silver, who is just 29, has been part of the science department in New York's Cheektowaga District for seven years. As advisor for the school's Bible Study Club, she kept a prayer request box in her office and kept Scripture post-it notes on her desk. Last fall, a student complained to secular activists that Miss Silver decorated her classroom with quotes from President Ronald Reagan and I Corinthians. At one point, the student said, she even referenced Adam and Eve in a discussion about the human rib cage.

At the prompting of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, school officials sent Silver an eight-page letter warning her that teachers' "rights to free speech and expression are not as broad as if you were simply a private citizen." Cheektowaga ordered Silver to tear down her posters and remove "even the small personal sticky notes" that she kept on her desk with encouraging Bible verses. To her credit, Silver didn't budge. "As a Christian and as an American, I believe it's incredibly important to fight to protect the rights that people have died to give me."

And fight she will. The young teacher announced last week that she's suing district officials for violating her First Amendment rights. Silver's attorney, Robert Muise, told Fox News that Cheektowaga is treating religious material like a "disease that has to be eradicated." "They essentially want her to cease being a Christian once she enters school property," Muise said. That's what should offend people–not quotes from the 40^thPresident. When I was a Member of the Louisiana legislature, I authored a law called the American History Preservation Act that protects the reading and posting of a whole range of documents–from the national anthem to presidential speeches. If more states were willing to introduce measures like Louisiana's, religious liberty would be protected in classrooms like Joelle Silver's….

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Bighoss

The young New York teacher is clearly out of bounds on this. She is, in effect, running her own little church right there in the classroom. Her actions clearly constitute an endorsement of one belief system over others. She, as an agent of government, is designing and applying an extracurricular program of religious instruction/indoctrination. This is flagrantly unconstitutional. Her lawyer, who has described this situation as “one of the most egregious examples of religious hostility I have witnessed in a public school," is either fabulously naive, clueless, or just bluffing, knowing that her case will go down in flames but that his organization will be looked on as a heroic defender of religious freedom for allegedly trying to "uphold the principles that this Christian nation was founded on.".

This teacher's actions constitute an "egregious example," all right. They are an egregious example of governmental intrusion into constitutionally-prohibited religious activity in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This case is cut and dried and the American Freedom Law Center, is on a fool's errand.

Now all you theocrats can reply to this with your standard, amateurish, and ignorant guardhouse lawyer rhetoric and any number of anecdotal quotations from the founding fathers and framers of the Constitution, but you will be dead wrong in defending governmental intrusion into religion as engineered by this apparently sincere but constitutionally-illiterate schoolmarm.
As clarification, I am not an atheist or agnostic. I am a conservative Christian. I am also a conservative, in the true sense of that word, with respect to the Constitution of the United States and its provision for separation of church and state. And yes, I know that the phrase "separation of church and state" is not found within the Constitution, but the PRINCIPLE is there and the Supreme Court has recognized and correctly interpreted that principle as prohibiting agents of government from endorsing or promoting one religion over others. It is time that the theocratic extremists in the evangelical community also recognized that principle instead of fecklessly attempting to discredit it with the amaterish legal interpretations that are so precictably eructated in discussions of this issue.
Bighoss

You say this: "She has as much right to display who she is as the student shows who he is by what he reads, wears, carries etc. She has the right to speak privately about it if asked, but she is not preaching to a captive audience."

Wrong, aceituna. When this lady posts written religious materials on the walls or bulletin boards of her classroom, she is using school resources to promote her views to the captive audience in that schoolroom. The other article about this matter, "Teachers get a lesson on liberty", also posted on Zionica, says that she decorated her classroom with quotes from Ronald Reagan and I Corinthians.
Yes, these Biblical quotes can be a "personal expression" but she is not keeping this personal when she posts it in a public school classroom. She is selectively endorsing her chosen religious points of view and THAT is unconstitutional!
- Bighoss
  
  Above post intended to be placed on string "NY Teacher sues District…" Go to that one and read more.
- madmemere
  
  Bullhockey – If the "libtard atheist brat" that complained doesn't like it, he/she is "free" to ignore it! Personally, I can't stand their "actions, make-up, lewd, lacivious, disgusting behavior, foul language, pawing each other in public places, inappropriate attire and conduct", but they "have the freedom" to do it- -I simply don't watch, or listen to it. That said- -when undisciplined juvenile delinquent brats behave in a disgusting manner, in "public places" they are NOT keeping it private, either! First Amendment Rights "work both ways" – -NOT just "your way"!
Korean Vet Ray

Korean Vet Ray
Prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speach. What part of these two phrases does not the officials of this School District and Bighoss not understand. And to infer that being a government employee, she is an extension of Congress is pure HOGWASH. If it is unconstitutionel to post Bible verses in a public classroom, then why are they posted on the inside walls of the United States Supreme Court Building?