FFRF v. Rhea County Board of Edudcation (2002)
Court Decisions on Religious Liberty
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Background Information
For many years, the school board of Rhea County, Tennessee, allowed a program named "Bible Education Ministry" (BEM) to take place in their public schools. This program involves kindergarten through the fifth grade in three elementary schools where lessons about the Bible were taught during regular school hours in each grade for 30 minutes per week.
There was no written description of this program, there was no public oversight of the program, and there was never any attempt to obtain parental consent for student participation. The Board of Education claimed that the program was optional and voluntary, but students were never informed about this and so no one ever had the chance to opt out.
School officials and teachers did not personally operate the program - instead, it was operated by students from the nearby Bryan College and was overseen by Travis Harvey Ricketts, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History and Director of Practical Christian Involvement. Bible lessons prepared for this program were not reviewed by the school - the content and manner of presentation were left entirely to the Byran College students and Dr. Ricketts.
Bryan College was established and named in honor of William Jennings Bryan who, during the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial," expressed a desire for a school in Dayton, Tennessee, the Rhea County seat, to teach the truth from a biblical perspective. For this reason, this particular court case has sometimes been referred to as "Scopes II."
Court Decision
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and anonymous parents of local school students challenged these Bible lessons in U.S. District Court. These plaintiffs argued that the government had no business teaching or promoting religion at all in the public schools, but also especially no business being involved with the teaching of such a narrow vision of religion.
The judge in this case, R. Allan Edgar, used the Supreme Court's "Lemon Test" to examine the the validity of the Bible lessons. According to the Lemon Test, a valid law must: (1) have a secular purpose; (2) have the primary effect of neither advancing nor inhibiting religion; and (3) not foster an excessive governmental entanglement with religion.
In all three points, the BEM program failed. There was no secular purpose in teaching the Bible as "truth" rather than simply as a historical document. The primary effect of teaching one particular vision of religion, Christianity and the Bible had the primary effect of advancing that religious perspective. Finally, there was an excessive entanglement between religion and government because government became involved with favoring one particular religious sect.
The Rhea County courses are being taught to the youngest and most impressionable school children by college students who have no discernable educational training and no supervision by the school system. The BEM lesson plans retained by Bryan College reveal that the children are being taught that the Bible conveys literal truth about God and Jesus Christ reflective of the Bryan College "Statement of Belief." In these classes, students are asked to memorize Bible verses, act out skits of Biblical stories, and sing songs such as "Jesus Loves Me," "My God Is So Great," "Pharaoh, Pharaoh," "Twelve Men Want to Spy on Canaan," "Shout to the Lord," "Change My Heart, Oh God," and "I'm In The Lord's Army." In short, the public school elementary students are being taught what might well be a Sunday School class in many of the Christian churches in Rhea County. At oral argument, counsel for defendants conceded that the Bible was indeed being presented in the Rhea County Schools "as the truth."
Significance
As Judge Edgar's decision explicitly stated, this was not even a "close case." The Supreme Court found back in 1948, in the McCollum v. Board of Education decision, the State to use its public school system to "aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines."
One of the arguments used in this case is one hear often from anti-separationists: because the local community was largely Christian and because Rhea county is "a place where they respect the Bible," then therefore it should be permissible for them to teach the Bible in the public schools. Judge Edgar made it clear to them that does not and cannot constitute a defense - indeed, that such an argument fundamentally misconstrues the meaning and purpose of the First Amendment. Religious liberty is not conditioned upon the whims and desires of a local majority. Constitutional protections exist precisely to reign in the actions of a majority.
This decision also specifically stated that, contrary to the claims by man, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment should be read in a broad manner, recognizing a large area of rights among the people and strict restrictions on government actions:
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