Despite two clear U.S. Supreme Court rulings last year ordering government entities to stop discriminating on the basis of religious viewpoint, a Virginia school district has chosen to violate the law and discriminate against a Christian teacher. Liberty Counsel is on the case.

Read on to learn what happened to this teacher and why Liberty Counsel must now fight to defend the religious freedom we won at the Supreme Court last year. We will not rest until religious freedom is FREE to ALL Americans once again. — Mat

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Cindy* loves children nearly as much as she loves Jesus. When she went to work as a teacher for Loudoun County Public Schools, she noticed that many of the teachers at her school included quotes below their email signature.

For example, one teacher uses a quote by socialist riot organizer Cesar Chavez (“Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our students”). Another teacher’s signature line quoted Frederick Douglass (“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”). Other teachers also include simple motivational quotes such as “Have courage and be kind,” and others include small pictures under their signatures with an encouraging or inspiring message.

Cindy decided to add her own personal “flair” to her signature line, adding, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Prov. 22:6.”

Even though the Bible verse closely parallels the Frederick Douglass quote, Cindy was ordered to remove her signature line — because it was a quote from the Bible!

At first, Acting LCPS Superintendent Dr. Daniel Smith, Ed.D., claimed that LCPS School Board Policy 7566 prohibits the teacher from using the Bible verse in her email signature. However, in reality, the policy only forbids obscene or vulgar language and conduct prohibited by law.

Then, Dr. Smith tried to claim that the Bible verse is prohibited by the Establishment Clause. In other words, he applied the “Lemon test” we buried last year!

But for the fact that this quotation is from Proverbs, one might never know it is religious at all. The only way of knowing is by way of the citation from where the quote is taken, and this exposes the extreme nature of LCSD’s censorship. In this district, apparently anything to do with the Bible or a religious viewpoint, no matter how neutrally expressed, is banned.

This argument by the LCSD runs completely counter to our Shurtleff v. City of Boston victory we won 9-0 before the U.S. Supreme Court last year. If a quote is secular, it is permissible at this school, but if it is religious or comes from the Bible, it is prohibited. This is nearly the exact argument the City of Boston made, and lost, in our “Christian flag case.”

Liberty Counsel issued a demand letter to the superintendent of Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia on Cindy’s behalf. In the letter, we explained to the district the legal sea change wrought by two landmark United States Supreme Court cases: Shurtleff v. City of Boston (a 9-0 case that Liberty Counsel argued at the Court) and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which finally buried the terrible judge-made “test” derived from Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) (aka the “Lemon test”).

The directive from LCPS to Cindy ordering the removal of the Bible verse from her email signature block, based solely on its perceived religious nature, violates the First Amendment.

Unfortunately, despite a clear explanation of the law, the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court’s rulings last year, Dr. Smith is unrepentant in his discrimination against this Christian teacher.

The First Amendment requires that the school district may not discriminate against the teacher’s private religious expression. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court and various federal courts have confirmed that organizations and individuals holding a religious viewpoint may not be subject to discrimination or censorship based on that viewpoint.

For example, in Liberty Counsel’s case Shurtleff v. City of Boston, the High Court unanimously ruled that Boston violated the Constitution by censoring a private flag in a public forum open to “all applicants” merely because the application referred to it as a “Christian flag.” The High Court unanimously rejected Boston’s use of the “Lemon Test” to censor Christian viewpoints.

Then in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the High Court ruled in favor of the high school football coach and finally buried the court-made “Lemon Test” citing Liberty Counsel’s 9-0 decision handed down in Shurtleff involving the Christian flag.

The decisions from the Supreme Court involving the Christian flag and Coach Kennedy sent a clear message that the “Lemon Test” has finally been buried and government must not discriminate based on religious viewpoint. Loudoun County Public Schools cannot discriminate against a teacher who wants to use a Bible verse in her signature when other teachers are including nonreligious quotes. Liberty Counsel will make sure of it. But we need your help.

Please fund our critical legal work defending religious freedom — and the Word of God — today. When you do, a special Challenge Grant will DOUBLE THE IMPACT of your donation. Please give generously today.

Mat Staver
Founder and Chairman
Liberty Counsel

*Name changed for privacy.

Source:

“VA School District Discriminates against Christian Viewpoint.” Liberty Counsel, April 3, 2023. https://lc.org/newsroom/details/040323-va-school-district-discriminates-against-christian-viewpoint.