FFRF: Ala. school district must stop teacher from displaying bible verses
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-ala-school-district-must-stop-teacher-from-displaying-bible-verses/
Publication Date: September 10, 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.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has informed Etowah County Schools in Gadsden, Ala., that a teacher there has been misusing her position to display bible verses to a captive audience of high school students.
A concerned district community member has informed the state/church watchdog that the Glencoe High School teacher writes a bible verse on the whiteboard each day. She recently posted a video on TikTok showing herself posting one of these bible verses.
“The district violates the Constitution when it allows its schools to display religious messages, including bible verses,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line has written to the district.
Posting a daily bible verse in the classroom each day displays clear favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity above all other faiths, FFRF stresses. Religion is a divisive force in public schools, and the practice needlessly alienates students who are part of the 49 percent of Generation Z that is religiously unaffiliated.
FFRF has told the district it must uphold its constitutional obligation to remain neutral toward religion by immediately ending the daily bible verse display practice. All Etowah County teachers need to understand their constitutional obligation not to promote their personal religious beliefs in the classroom, FFRF emphasizes.
“By proselytizing students, this teacher is showing that she’s willing to put her personal beliefs — which public school students may not share — before the rights of students and her constitutional obligations,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “It is not a public school teacher’s decision as to what, if any, gods their students worship. That is a decision solely for each family to make.”
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