Offenses Against Children... Near YOU!

Grandmother Gets Help Asserting Preschoolers Right to Share His Faith

By Allie Martin

Thanks to the efforts of a persistent grandmother and advice from a pro-family legal group, a four-year-old student at a Head Start program in one Oregon city can now talk about his faith with classmates. An instructor had initially muzzled the youngster's religious speech at school.

Recently, a four-year old, "Zachariah," who attended a Head Start early childhood development program in Baker City, Oregon, was talking to a classmate during non-instructional time when a teacher overheard his comments about Christianity. The instructor proceeded to inform the child that he could not talk about religion at school, an action that prompted the boy's grandmother to contact the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy (AFA Law Center).

Steve Crampton is the AFA Law Center's Chief Counsel and a specialist in constitutional law. He says many U.S. schools and other public educational institutions will, in an effort to avoid legal troubles, actually take steps that may put them on the wrong side of the law by infringing on students' First Amendment freedoms.

In this case, Crampton notes, "The teacher was basically insinuating herself into a private conversation between Zachariah and one of his classmates. The over-zealousness on the part of this teacher is extraordinary, and I'm sure she thought she was doing a good deed, trying to protect the school. But, in fact, she was interfering with Zachariah's own constitutional rights."

Zachariah's grandmother wrote to the attorneys at the AFA Law Center, explaining what had happened and requesting advice in preparation for a meeting with a teacher from the preschool program. In the pro-family legal group's response, they let the concerned woman know that her grandson does indeed have the right to speak to his classmates about God, "providing of course that he does so in a manner that does not disrupt the normal academic exercises of the class."

In his response, Crampton told the woman that the school was most probably "operating under the misimpression that the Establishment Clause, which bars the school from promoting religion, similarly prohibits your grandson from talking about God and promoting religion." However, he noted, "The school is wrong. As the United States Supreme Court has observed, “[t]here is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion," which the Constitution's free Speech and free exercise clauses protect.

Once these facts were conveyed to the school, the AFA Law Center's Chief Counsel says the matter was quickly resolved. He notes, "After we gave the grandmother a little steer on the law and explained that Zachariah was well within his constitutional rights to share his faith at school, the teacher visited. And now, the school has backed off and recognizes the right of Zachariah to talk about God at school during non-instructional times.

"Obviously," Crampton adds, "like anybody else, he's not going to be allowed to disrupt class; but it's a tremendous victory." He says officials at the boy's school have apologized for their behavior and now understand that, according to the law, students can freely talk about their faith without fear of repercussion.