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.
Just a matter of time...
Just a matter of time...
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Time makes more converts than reason. - Thomas Paine
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Jice Virago
- Way too much time!
- Posts: 1644
- Joined: July 4, 2002, 5:47 pm
- Gender: Male
- PSN ID: quyrean
- Location: Orange County
Just keep thumping that bible there, Rekaar.
Shouldn't you be angry at a holiday that is based on christians cooperating with pagans anyhow, instead of trolling with Jesus-bait?
Shouldn't you be angry at a holiday that is based on christians cooperating with pagans anyhow, instead of trolling with Jesus-bait?
War is an option whose time has passed. Peace is the only option for the future. At present we occupy a treacherous no-man's-land between peace and war, a time of growing fear that our military might has expanded beyond our capacity to control it and our political differences widened beyond our ability to bridge them. . . .
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Dwight Eisenhower
Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.
--RICHARD M. NIXON, "REAL PEACE" (1983)
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
Dwight Eisenhower
I imagine you'd be the one baying for blood if he was handing out Satanic teachings, or perhaps worse Islamic.
"God has no place within these walls!" - Superintendant Chalmers.
"God has no place within these walls!" - Superintendant Chalmers.
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
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Rasspotari
- Gets Around
- Posts: 227
- Joined: April 2, 2003, 7:36 am
the pillars of the american justice system, or how your race of lawyer are prone to interpret them is hillarious.
-you can't do A
-unless you have this hair color
-but only if it's dyed
-and it's 5am pst
-but then you can't do B
-unless you did B before A
-you can't do A after B
-unless your name is bob
i find you should give your judges a little room to be able to stand up and say "no, this is not going to trial, i dont care if you fell because of a crack in the pavement, it was an accident. if you did go blind and can't talk anymore, it just means it's a tragic accident. noone is going to pay you for anything, be careful in the future."
lawyers should not get % of anything. just a standard fee, and should get it no matter if they lose or not. you want to sue someone, fine pay for it, and the lawyer will come up with a sensible number that he wont recieve any portion of if you win. but you will still pay the lawyer if you lose.
now stop cluttering up the justice system please.
-you can't do A
-unless you have this hair color
-but only if it's dyed
-and it's 5am pst
-but then you can't do B
-unless you did B before A
-you can't do A after B
-unless your name is bob
i find you should give your judges a little room to be able to stand up and say "no, this is not going to trial, i dont care if you fell because of a crack in the pavement, it was an accident. if you did go blind and can't talk anymore, it just means it's a tragic accident. noone is going to pay you for anything, be careful in the future."
lawyers should not get % of anything. just a standard fee, and should get it no matter if they lose or not. you want to sue someone, fine pay for it, and the lawyer will come up with a sensible number that he wont recieve any portion of if you win. but you will still pay the lawyer if you lose.
now stop cluttering up the justice system please.
Rasspotari
Rogue
Rogue
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Karae
- Almost 1337
- Posts: 878
- Joined: July 3, 2002, 5:32 pm
- Location: Orange County, California
- Contact:
If he's quoting specific passages that emphasize religion and using them to proselytize his students, that is wrong. If he's just presenting the materials for their educational significance, he should be allowed to. Really can't tell which is is from the article. Supreme Court cases like Engel vs. Vitale, which deemed enforced prayer in schools unconstitutional, Stone vs. Graham, which banned the posting of the Ten Commandments in schools, Edwards vs. Aguillard, which said that teaching Creationism violates the Constitution, etc. all clearly show teaching religion in public schools is not constitutional.
Oh, and it isn't a fact of American history that *all* our founders were Christian.
Benjamin Franklin, for example, questioned the divinity of Jesus.
It is a fact that *some* of them were.
What is also a fact is that they all agreed to provision within the Constitution the right for people to practice any religion they like without any influence, regulation, persecution, or preference from the government.
Oh, and it isn't a fact of American history that *all* our founders were Christian.
Benjamin Franklin, for example, questioned the divinity of Jesus.
It is a fact that *some* of them were.
What is also a fact is that they all agreed to provision within the Constitution the right for people to practice any religion they like without any influence, regulation, persecution, or preference from the government.
War pickles men in a brine of disgust and dread.
heh thought it already was "us vs them". At least it is already "either you are with us or against us".Seebs wrote:We are about to get deeper in what is quickly becoming a religious world war ... get used to people defending CHristianity ... Its gonna become an 'us versus them' world soon.
That is my doomsday speech for the week.