School dispute beyond candy

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School dispute beyond candy

Expression of faith may drive lawsuit

By Marti Maguire, The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina), April 23, 2006

The packages of jelly beans came with printed messages explaining their many colors in terms of Christian symbolism: green because God made the grass green, white for peace, red for the blood of Christ.

But when a Raleigh second-grader wasn't allowed to pass them out at Leesville Road Elementary School, the jelly beans became another symbol of the ways in which the battle over religion in schools is being waged.

Leesville parent Natalya Hill contacted a national group that advocates for religious expression after her son, Robert, was not allowed to pass out the candy after a presentation she gave on the meaning of Easter last week.

A lawyer from the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund responded with a letter demanding that the school allow Robert to pass out the candy. The school didn't relent, and ADF lawyers have threatened a lawsuit. It would be their fourth case in North Carolina, and they are considering three others.

Raleigh lawyer Ann Majestic, who represents the Wake County school district, said district policy does not forbid the passing out of candy with religious messages. But in this case, she said, the candy was to be given out as part of a class presentation, so the principal had the right to decide.

"If it was a little boy at lunch who was sharing something with a peer that has a religious saying on it, that would have been different," Majestic said. "The principal had every right to place parameters on a visitor in the classroom."

The principal found out about the candy when he was reviewing plans for the Easter presentation with Hill. But the defense fund contends that because it was Hill's son who planned to pass out the candy, it was his personal expression, not part of the class presentation.

"This is a blatant violation of the student's First Amendment rights," said Delia van Loenen, the lawyer who wrote the letter. "This is not government speech, not the school's speech. This is his own private religious speech."

Natalya Hill made her presentation last week, without the candy. She said she was surprised at first by the possibility of a lawsuit; she thought the school would relent once it got the letter explaining her son's rights. Now she hopes the defense fund takes the case.

"It's bigger than just the candy to me," Hill said. "It's become more of a personal thing. ... It just seems like our rights are being pushed out more and more."

Hill said she got interested in religious expression in schools when her son started kindergarten and she saw Christian holidays stripped of religious symbols and replaced with secular ones. She started reading up on constitutional arguments and found that ADF and other groups were winning court battles with a broader interpretation of religious freedom than she saw at her son's school.

"I found out there are a lot of things that we can legally do that we're being told we can't do," Hill said.

Denise Raidna, treasurer of the Leesville PTA, said the school's awareness of the diversity of its student body is prompting parents and administrators to be cautious about religious expression, especially on holidays.

In Pittsburgh, where she once lived, most of the children at her sons' elementary school were Catholic, and there was no conflict over Christmas parties.

Now she has gotten used to holiday parties that don't favor any one religion. It is only fair, she said, when you have students from different religious backgrounds.

"I think it bothers the parents more than it does the kids," Raidna said.

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