Oct 10, 2012
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A Wisconsin school district has ordered a joint public-private school football team to change its logo – in the middle of the season — after a lone parent said the inclusion of a bishop’s hat and cross was a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
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Martin Lexmond, superintendent of the Shorewood School District, told Fox News that he made the decision to remove the logos after consulting with the school board.
“It just didn’t occur to anybody that there might be questions about it,” he said. “A parent last week raised the question asking if this was a violation of separation of church and state.”
The school district has a unique partnership with a Messmer, private Roman Catholic high school. In 2000 the two small schools joined forces to create a football co-op.
Bob Smith, president of the Catholic school, told WTMJ that he was “not happy” about the decision and said it “is hurtful for the kids.”
“It’s going to be hurtful for the kid who designed the logo..it’s going to be hurtful for the team,” he told the radio station.
From the Shorewood Patch
The new logo was created a few months ago by a Shorewood student and put on football helmets in August. Football coaches from both schools along with high school administrators signed off on the project.
The new logo included a greyhound logo of Shorewood and a bishop’s hat with a cross that represented Messmer.
“It’s clearly a Christian cross,” school board member Michael Mishlove told Mequonnow.com. “I think it’s inappropriate to have on a uniform or any sort of school authorized clothing, as I think it could be viewed as an endorsement.”
Lexmond agreed – and decided to censor the logo – instead of pursue the matter.
“We don’t know the answer to the question of separation of church and state but we are choosing to focus on the story of our young people – not on that question,” he told Fox News.
It’s a case of classic liberal intolerance, said Paul Kengor, executive director of Grove City College’s Center for Vision and Values.
“This is the kind of nutty hysteria that has become all too common in this country, and it’s the direct result of a fundamental misunderstanding of ‘separation of church and state’,” Kengor told Fox News. “It’s fitting that this would happen here; that is, in a school. It’s precisely in schools that this misunderstanding is bred.”
But Lexmond said he has no interest in finding out whether the football logo violates the Constitution. He said it’s more important to stay focused on the “life lessons” of their public-private partnership where “kids from very different worlds have learned to work together.”
Tom Pope teaches Constitutional Law at Lee University. He said the football logo did not put the school district on the edge of a Constitutional crisis.
“It is hard to argue that the logo with a cross on it advances religion in any substantive way,” Pope told Fox News.
Regardless, he said the school board is well within its Constitutional rights to change the logo.
“They just don’t have to do so,” he stressed.
So what will the school district tell the child whose logo got censored?
“This is actually a teachable moment,” he said. “This is real-world learning. We’re going to work with him again. We’re going to partner with Messmer and next year we will have a design that represents both schools that doesn’t pull us into these kinds of questions.”
But what happens if someone objects to the public school’s greyhound logo?
“We would listen and be thoughtful and consider if there were alternatives,” Lexmond replied.
Officials with the Catholic school did not return calls seeking comment – but Kengor said they are the ones who should be most offended.
“They should be offended by the intolerance of the self-proclaimed champions of tolerance who are demanding that they not be permitted to use their own symbols,” Kengor said. “They’re being told they can’t use their own symbols, merely because those symbols are religious.”
But Lexmond is sticking by his belief that this is a “teachable moment.”
“The teachable moment is sometimes clients change their minds,” he said. “They come back to you and ask you to reconsider, rethink, redesign, and so that’s an opportunity for us to help our young people learn what it’s like in a graphic design world.”
Kengor said he’s not terribly surprised by the school’s reaction.
“This is classic liberal intolerance,” he said. “Whatever happened to liberals believing in diversity? Not where religions is concerned, apparently.”
FOX News Talk
Religion has gotten WAY too arrogant. I am NOW in favor of cutting any mention of religion out of public assets or programs.
I am ALSO in favor of removing ALL religions NON PROFIT status. They are a FOR PROFIT companies. And, they also broke their mandate to stay out of Politics. So, let them pay their taxes and then they can politic ALL they want. Religion is on a major downturn anyhow. Reading from an old book, and praying to a plaster of paris statue and tithing 10% of your GROSS salary is for fools. Let them do what they want, but pay their taxes. When you look in your town and some of the best real estate properties, they are owned by religion. Yet, those properties pay ZERO taxes. ZERO!
I have been reading these comments and realize that our country will never come together. It makes me very sad. Just because we cannot look each other in the eye it seems to give someone who disagrees the right to name call and use foul language about another persons opinion. This is tragedy for the United States, apparently our country has failed – freedom of expression has failed.
Liberals prudes get the vapors when they see religious symbols. Such offensive symbols must be censored to protect these weak-kneed ninnies.
More discrimination against Christians in the name of "equality, tolerance, and diversity" huh? Unbelievable hypocrisy.
This what happens when you cave to the libs the school should have stood their ground and stood up to the morons. One person complain and they change it what a bunch of losers if I would the catholic school I tell them I want for their games. They should be it back ASAP!
"Fight the good fight of Faith." 1 Timothy 6:12.
Absolutely….we need to use the word of God. He can speak for us. Thanks Ronda!
Absolutely….we need to use the word of God. He can speak for us. Thanks Ronda!
The Equal Access Act – Student Rights in the Public Schools 2004.
Nov 15 2004 11:00 PM.
The Equal Access Act is designed to ensure that, consistent with the First Amendment, student religious activities are accorded the same access to public school facilities as are student secular activities. Based on decisions of the Federal courts, as well as its interpretations of the Act, the Department of Justice has advised that the Act should be interpreted as providing, among other things, that:
General provisions: Student religious groups at public secondary schools have the same right of access to school facilities as is enjoyed by other comparable student groups. Under the Equal Access Act, a school receiving Federal funds that allows one or more student noncurriculum-related clubs to meet on its premises during noninstructional time may not refuse access to student religious groups.
Prayer services and worship exercises covered: A meeting, as defined and protected by the Equal Access Act, may include a prayer service, Bible reading, or other worship exercise.
Equal access to means of publicizing meetings: A school receiving Federal funds must allow student groups meeting under the Act to use the school media – including the public address system, the school newspaper, and the school bulletin board – to announce their meetings on the same terms as other noncurriculum-related student groups are allowed to use the school media. Any policy concerning the use of school media must be applied to all noncurriculum-related student groups in a nondiscriminatory matter. Schools, however, may inform students that certain groups are not school sponsored.
Lunch-time and recess covered: A school creates a limited open forum under the Equal Access Act, triggering equal access rights for religious groups, when it allows students to meet during their lunch periods or other noninstructional time during the school day, as well as when it allows students to meet before and after the school day.
- The Department of Education's.
guidelines for the Equal Access.
Act were revised May 1998.
This shows that religion can be addressed and done in public schools. It also shows that by not allowing religious symbolism or such, is also against the law, if it allows secular symbolism or such…. So, it can allow the cross, if it allows the secular dog…
Students' First Amendment rights include the right to distribute Gospel tracts during non-instructional time, the right to wear shirts communicating Christian messages and symbols, and the right to pray and discuss matters of religion with others. Further, schools may not prevent students from bringing their Bibles to school. In fact, school officials must allow students to read their Bibles during free time, even if that free time occurs during class. The standard that must be applied by the school is: Does the activity "materially or substantially disrupt schooldiscipline?" Unless a student is disruptive, the school must refrain from interfering with their religious activities.
The distribution of free religious literature is protected by the First Amendment. Religious and political speech are protected by the First Amendment.24 Furthermore, "[a]dvocacy and persuasive speech are included within the First Amendment guarantee if the speech is otherwise protected."25.
The Supreme Court of the United States' consistent jurisprudence, for fifty years, has recognized that free distribution of literature is a form of expression protected by the Constitution of the United States.26 In Lovell v. City of Griffin, the Supreme Court of the United States put the case for constitutional protection of leaflets and pamphlets quite clearly:
The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our history abundantly attest. The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated.27.
The constitutional value of leaflets and pamphlets is not lessened by the fact that they address matters of religion.28 The role of religious leaflets and tracts is historic:
The hand distribution of religious tracts is an age-old form of missionary evangelism – as old as the history of printing presses. It has been a potent force in various religious movements down through the years…. It is more than preaching; it is more than distribution of religious literature. It is a combination of both. Its purpose is as evangelical as the revival meeting. This form of religious activity occupies the same high estate under the First Amendment as do worship in the churches and preaching from the pulpits.29.
School officials may not lump a student's right to distribute free literature together with more disruptive forms of expression, such as solicitation. As the Supreme Court has explained, the experience of thousands of "residents of metropolitan areas [who] know from daily experience [that] confrontation by a person asking for money disrupts passage and is more intrusive and intimidating than an encounter with a person giving out information."30 Distribution of literature is inherently even less disruptive than spoken expression. As the Supreme Court stated, "[o]ne need not ponder the contents of a leaflet or pamphlet in order mechanically to take it out of someone's hand, but one must listen, comprehend, decide and act in order to respond to a solicitation."31.
The applicable standard – material and substantial disruption – is not met by an undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disruption. In other words, it is not enough for school officials to fear that allowing religious speech will offend some members of the community. "Undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression."32 Where a student wishes to peacefully distribute free literature on school grounds during non-instructional time, there simply is nothing which "might reasonably [lead] school authorities to forecast substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities…."33.
School officials need not fear that leaflet distribution by students may be imputed to them, and that the Establishment Clause would thereby be violated. This very argument has been rejected by the Supreme Court of the United States. In Mergens, the Court stated that the activities of student evangelists in a public school do not present any Establishment Clause problems:
[P]etitioners urge that, because the student religious meetings are held under school aegis, and because the state's compulsory attendance laws bring the students together (and thereby provide a ready-made audience for student evangelists), an objective observer in the position of a secondary school student will perceive official school support for such religious meetings…. We disagree.34
Of course, Mergens merely reflects the Establishment Clause's intended limitation – not on the rights of individual students – but on the power of governments (including school officials). As the Mergens Court stated, "there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect."35.
The last paragraph says it all – it is not a problem with the schools and the cross, it is an issue with the govt potentially trying to regulate it….
Garnett v. Renton Sch. Dist. No. 403, 987 F.2d 641 (9th Cir. 1993); see also Hoppock v. Twin Falls Sch. Dist. No. 411, 772 F. Supp. 1160 (D. Idaho 1991) (students' rights to form religious club under federal law trumps state constitutional ban on use of school property by religious groups).
A football helmut for a school team is school property…. hmmm…..
Several courts have held that the distribution of religious literature by high school students is protected speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. See Rivera v. E. Otero Sch. Dist. R-1, 721 F. Supp. 1189 (D. Colo. 1989); Thompson v. Waynesboro Area Sch. Dist., 673 F. Supp. 1379 (M.D. Pa. 1987); Nelson v. Moline Sch. Dist. No. 40, 725 F. Supp. 965 (C.D. Ill. 1989). Hemry v. Sch. Bd. of Colo. Springs School Dist. 11, 760 F. Supp. 856 (D. Colo. 1991). In Hemry, school officials ultimately conceded that students had the right to distribute the religious material on campus both inside and outside the building. Hemry v. Sch. Bd. of Colo. Springs, No. 90-S-2188, Stipulation for Dismissal (D. Colo. Nov. 12, 1991) (unpublished). Accord Harden v. Sch. Bd. of Pinellas County, No. 90-1544-CIV-T-15A, Consent Decree and Order (M.D. Fla. 1991) (students permitted to distribute religious newspaper on campus).
If you think the helmuts could be considered religious literature (of a sort), then also legal….
Teachers and
administrators also are prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content.
and from soliciting or encouraging antireligious activity.
– from the U.S. Department of Education Guidelines Manual.
Teachers and
administrators also are prohibited from discouraging activity because of its religious content.
and from soliciting or encouraging antireligious activity.
– from the U.S. Department of Education Guidelines Manual.
The helmut design was designed by a student, and accepted by the students and administration and therefore falls under the guidelines from the U.S. Department of Education Guidelines manaual…..
Students may express their beliefs about religion in the form of homework, artwork and.
other written and oral assignments free of discrimination based on the religious content of.
their submissions. Such home and classroom work should be judged by ordinary academic.
standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns.
identified by the school.
Students have a right to distribute religious literature to their
schoolmates on the same terms as they are permitted to
distribute other literature that is unrelated to school
curriculum or activities.
They may not single out
religious literature for special regulation, nor deny it by the same means.
Rules on Student Garb (clothing) from the U.S. Department of Education Guidelines Manual:
Students generally have no federal right to be exempted from religiously neutral and.
generally applicable school dress rules based on their religious beliefs or practices; however,
schools may not single out religious attire in general, or attire of a particular religion, for.
prohibition or regulation. Students may display religious messages on items of clothing to the.
same extent that they are permitted to display other comparable messages. Religious messages
may not be singled out for suppression, but rather are subject to the same rules as generally.
apply to comparable messages.
This downright states that the helmut is perfectly fine to allow the cross……
Religious Symbols Did not violate Establishment Clause:
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 675, 680 (1984); see also Clever v. Cherry Hill Township Bd. of Educ., 838 F. Supp. 929 (D.N.J. 1993) (school district policy requiring classrooms to maintain calendars depicting religious and other holidays and permitting seasonal displays that include religious symbols did not violate the Establishment Clause).
Remember what REAGAN said would happen if/when we let them remove GOD from our lives Its happenning NOW Since when does the feelings of one person rise above the majority? We of the USA are a CHRISTIAN/JUDEO country if you do not like what our Ancestors made of this Country for us then GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM OR TO A COUNTRY THAT THINKS FEELS & ACTS LIKE YOU.
Enough of this tripe.
The School Super is a coward.
ONE parent?
This is a REPUBLIC with MAJORITY rule.
The Constitution stands.
The school needs to stand firm and reject the argument against the cross precisely because it is a 'teachable' moment and the school is the place to bring the argument out and to correct the wrong of decades of liberal lies and conservative cowardice in failing to stand up to the libs.
The threat of litigation is always the deterrent for the liberal, the cost of such litigation the bar for the school to fight the affront by the liberal.
We need to get rid of liberals at every level of gov't and root them out of the judiciary.
Amen! Funny how schools and churches were held in the same buildings. The first text books were scripture. Now all of a sudden the libs deny the history….. Oh I forgot, they are libs!
Last time I checked, according to the U.S Supreme Court, if a secular image is also allowed on the helmets (IE. the running dog, as on these helmets) So should a Christian Cross be allowed. So unless they just want white helmets, they shouldn't change them. PS. Running dogs offend me, remove them please, along with the blue police looking shield. They offend me too! (Eye's roll)
Having a white helmet, might be construed as racist to these lunatics.
Cowardice.
There it is again- "Separation of church and state"! AN ABSOLUTE FALSE STATEMENT! There is nothing anywhere in our founding documents about separation of church and state!
AND- a Catholic school should be able to represent their religion with an appropriate symbol of a cross!
In America the majority is suppose to rule and not the minority. A decision to remove a school's team logo is really stepping on people's right to free speech. Why give in to one person when the number of persons would want to express their belief? God help America.
the more and more we take God influence from this country the worse we will get…sometimes I wonder if where past it? america sure isn't the place it used to be is it? sure on the road to revelation aren't we! still hope God loves you died for you took your place on the cross For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whomever should believe in him should NOT! perish but have everlasting life…for he did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but through him the world may be saved! If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved, for it is with you heart you believe and are justified and with you mouth you confess and are saved! if spiritual revival does not come this nation will crumble!
I agree son. It is time to pay attention people. Time is short.
antichrist spirit working through the sons of disobedience. Not the perfect world yet but its coming.
If this was a public school or public/private school combo team in Dearborn, MIchigan with an Islamic crescent, what are the odds it would be defended in here? None of course. The players would probably be called terrorists.
Here's the key…….a LONE PARENT….When are we going to stop allowing the MINORITY….NON CHRISTIAN….. to dictate what happens. If the Chistians would stand up for what they believe in then this would not be an issue.
Really Sad…Who is running the show? I am afraid to know!!
They're not offended by the cross on the helmet, but it convicts the individual of their sin and so therefore they complain. I wonder if the individual likes their money? It has God on it. Maybe they should give their money away. I don't complain about their ignorance.
This is too much! Paganism in America is becoming a fundamentalist! Peace be with you. If you reject the peace of God, then its your problem now.
This is too much! Paganism in America is becoming a fundamentalist! Peace be with you. If you reject the peace of God, then its your problem now.
Our Religious freedom is being taken away from us day by day, because we are giving it to them by not fighting for it, I totally agree with Stephen. Read what the Founding Fathers really said. What they don't teach you in school It is called the truth, not distortion.
Exactly what genuinely motivated u to post “School
Orders Cross Removed From Football Helmets | FOX News & Commentary: Todd Starnes”?
I personallycertainly liked the blog post! Thank you ,Dewitt