2012 Victories: Schools Cannot Ban the Bible

This is the latest installment in a year-end series looking back at a few of the hundreds of victories by the ACLJ in 2012.

All too often angry atheists and others peddling the false dogma of the so-called “separation of church and state” end up coercing otherwise good intentioned teachers and school principals into to silencing the religious speech of young students. While the Supreme Court has been clear that students do not lose their constitutional rights in a public school setting, the ACLJ constantly needs to remind schools around the country of this fact and that the Bible is not a banned book.

In one situation, when a 7th grader passed out Bible verses and encouraging notes to her classmate, one of the other students’ parents complained. The school principal then told her that she could no longer pass out any Bible verses or religious messages of any kind at school. We worked with the student and her family, and the school responded that the principal had acted against school policy in censoring her religious message and that it would not happen again.

Another 7th grade student attempted to reference the Bible in a class assignment on Roman history. Her teacher refused to allow her to reference the Bible. The ACLJ worked with this student and her parents in helping to educate the teacher about this student’s constitutional rights, ensuring that she would not be discriminated against in the classroom for using the Bible.

In another situation, an elementary school refused to allow an afterschool Bible club to meet on campus where other clubs were allowed to meet. The ACLJ literally took a case just like this all the way to the Supreme Court and won. When our attorney’s explained the law protecting, not banning, the Bible and religious speech, the school quickly relented allowing the Bible club to meet.

These are just a few of the dozens of situations we are involved in to ensure that the right of our students to read the Bible and live out their faith on public school campuses remains protected.

To help the ACLJ continue to have the resources we need to make these victories possible and continue these fights, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the ACLJ through our year-end Matching Challenge. Your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar through the end of the year.

You can read more in the ACLJ’s Victories series here.