FFRF to N.C. school: Remove Christian cross from mascot logo
Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Publisher Founding: September 1, 2014
Publisher Location: Fort Langley, Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Publication: Freethought Newswire
Original Link: https://ffrf.org/news/releases/ffrf-to-n-c-school-remove-christian-cross-from-mascot-logo/
Publication Date: August 22, 2024
Organization: Freedom From Religion Foundation
Organization Description: The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters all over the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
South Caldwell High School in Lenoir, N.C., must remove a Christian cross from its mascot logo, which is also prominently displayed in its gym, says the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national state/church watchdog.
Multiple district community members have reported that South Caldwell High School recently added a Latin cross to the spelling of its mascot name in the gym, with the capital “T” being modified to represent a Christian cross.
“The district violates the U.S. Constitution when it allows its schools to display religious symbols or messages,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line writes to Superintendent Donald Phipps.
FFRF asserts that to protect students’ First Amendment rights, the district must immediately remove the religious display from the South Caldwell High School gym, and anywhere else it might appear.
The district boasts on its website: “We are committed to providing equitable opportunities for all students, valuing and celebrating their diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.” Yet this mascot redesign and highly prominent display violate not only the constitutional prohibition against preferring religion over nonreligion or Christianity over all other faiths. Additionally, this religious display needlessly alienates, excludes and turns into second-class citizens, those students and teachers who are a part of the nearly 37 percent of Americans who are non-Christians, and the nearly one in three Americans who are now religiously unaffiliated. Gen-Zs are the least religious generation, with as many as half having no religious affiliation.
“It is the constitutional duty of every public school to remain secular in all forms,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “South Caldwell High School must adhere to this principle and remove this overtly religious symbol as soon as possible.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen, or the author(s), and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors copyright their material, as well, and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 