Religion and the Educator

By Michael T. McCoy
UEA General Counsel

[Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series.]

Recently, a teacher was the subject of extraordinary attention because she was accused by several students of abusing their right to read scriptures during the class. The teacher removed several of the students from her class. Because of the inflammatory nature of the charges, the school district removed the teacher from the school during the course of the investigation.

Innocent Until Proven Guilty?

Initially, the media carried only the students’ side of the story. The teacher’s union investigated the charges and two days later issued its own version – based on interviews with the students and other adults present in the classroom. The students’ allegations were fabricated. In fact, the students were reading materials that had not been assigned and violated written directives from the teacher’s syllabus. The fact is these students decided to provoke the teacher – probably because she was not of their religious persuasion. The teacher had simply asked the students to put away their scriptures and cease disrupting the class by reading the scriptures aloud. When they failed to follow directions, the teacher, following district policy, had them removed from the classroom.

While our initial reaction was to sue, we concluded with the district that we should get the matter behind us and move on with the business of educating kids. The students who provoked the incident were transferred to other classrooms. As a teacher advocacy organization, we thought the students should have been subjected to greater discipline, but that is the district’s decision, not ours. Had the students and their attorney persisted, we may well have given them our own brand of discipline – in a courtroom.

‘Religion-Free Zones’

The reason the news picked up on the story is the underlying suspicion that the courts have declared public schools “religion-free zones,” and the students’ complaints played to the public’s fears.

As members of the UEA, you need to know we will protect our members against unwarranted and false accusations of whatever nature or kind related to you and your job as an educator. We spend thousands of dollars defending educators’ rights.

The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution provides, among other things, that Congress shall not establish any religion nor prohibit the free exercise thereof. However, the First Amendment, by our reading and the litigation spawned by it, does not expel religion from the public schools; it provides that the state, in this case local school districts, may not sponsor religious practices in the schools. Equally important, the First Amendment prohibits the state from interfering with the free exercise of religion. This means if a school district permits use of the school by non-curricular student groups, it cannot prohibit individual students or groups of students from conducting religious ceremonies and engaging in religious practices while at school, so long as the activities are not school-sponsored and do not interfere with the operations of the school (e.g., a student cannot decide to pray to avoid taking a math exam).

Educators Can Direct Student Learning Activities

In our teacher example above, had the students’ time been truly a “free time,” then the students could have read about anything, within reason, they wanted. They could have read religious scriptures, comic books, or fiction.

From our perspective, religious scriptures are among the most important literature ever written. While an educator could not encourage reading religious scriptures per se, the educator could list among preferred optional reading materials, religious materials (hopefully from more than just one religion). However, educators can direct student learning activities and this may include directing them to put away religious scripture when that material is not the lesson.

For more information about
educator rights
and responsibilities,
visit the UEA website at:
http://www.utea.org/educatorResources/educatorRights/index.htm