Declaration of Independence Banned at Calif School—Reuters.com
By Dan Whitcomb
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students documents from American history that refer to God—including the Declaration of Independence.Steven Williams, a fifth-grade teacher at Stevens Creek School in the San Francisco Bay area suburb of Cupertino, sued for discrimination on Monday, claiming he had been singled out for censorship by principal Patricia Vidmar because he is a Christian.
“It’s a fact of American history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and shameful,” said Williams’ attorney, Terry Thompson.
“Williams wants to teach his students the true history of our country,” he said. “There is nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence.”
Vidmar could not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose and claims violations of Williams rights to free speech under the First Amendment.
Phyllis Vogel, assistant superintendent for Cupertino Unified School District, said the lawsuit had been forwarded to a staff attorney. She declined to comment further.
Williams asserts in the lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval, and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references to God or Christianity.
Among the materials she has rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, George Washington’s journal, John Adams’ diary, Samuel Adams’ “The Rights of the Colonists” and William Penn’s “The Frame of Government of Pennsylvania.”
“He hands out a lot of material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because that’s what the founders wrote,” said Thompson, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. “The principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to Christianity and it is pure discrimination.”
What would be an appropriate way to deal with a teacher proselytizing, given s/he were tenured?
How much leeway does a teacher have to supplement district-approved curriculum?
Are personal diaries of historical figures relevant to history? I’m thinking about Clinton’s recent library opening and his statements that personal life has little impact on public performance/policy. If his life doesn’t affect his policy, why should we care or bother teaching children what the founding fathers thought as they created the constitution?
What do you speculate they might find in this teacher’s past?
How’s about “At least they’re not suffering any more.” Or, “So and so was a great person, and lived a wonderful life.” ??
Ah, but as for greater than yourself—how about all of humanity?
Humanity is pretty cool, you gotta admit. I know a lot of humans do nasty things, but on the whole, humanity—I am in awe.
SS, yes, as I said, you have found my weak point, many Christians tell me I make 3 year olds look good at Chemistry. I just would rather read. I LOVED Kant & Descartes, but not enough to follow their advice I guess. I like fractals & chaos theory insofar as I mathematically understand them, but when I have to remember #s & letters & equations from the periodic table I’m lost, Although I’m sure it reveals much more about the character of God. The Quaker writer Richard Foster is one of my favorites…& he’s what really motivated me into meditation…Yes. most analogies in human language on this planet suck ass, so you’re right about the legs part, but to continue with the analogy, I guess I would call faith (in Truth) the “Red Bull” that helps you realize you have wings, so the legs aren’t the only tool you have for getting around anymore. So I guess I don’t understand what you mean by fear of logic, I don’t want people to tell me that’s all I am, is my brain & ability to think when I’m in great turmoil or what you call the “dark night of the soul.” I have corrected & changed many of my beliefs, especially in college. I think (like Descartes pointed out) that while it is helpful to doubt one’s foundations for a period, if I we were to continually in a state of doubting their foundations & the ground they walk on, it wouldn’t be very productive…The cycles of times I doubted & struggled were amazing, but they are very personal & I think everyone has to go through it for themselves, so I don’t explain much because I don’t think my experience is the same, although I can relate to others who have also struggled, questioned & thought. I just can’t relate or don’t see atheists/ignostics going through the same thing. They either never seriously considered the possibility there is a God because they don’t see compelling evidence or they are angry with the possiblility of God having certain characteristics or even at events in their own lives.
Someone’s typing Lord, kumbaya…
I’m with you, shana. But don’t forget them platypuses.
Indeed. When we want to, us humans can be an amazing bunch capable of great things and legendary feats. It is my awe and admiration for the good that humanity is capable of that compels me to rant and scream and yell at the people who insist on being idiots because it’s easier or it benefits them more to be so. Most folks aren’t literally stupid, they’re willfully ignorant. Granted, we can’t all be Einsteins, but a lot of us could be doing a better job of utilizing they grey matter between our ears.
Ain’t that the truth?
Open your eyes, and your mind. You’d be quite surprised.
How do you think most atheists (and agnostics) arrived at the conclusion that they would identify themselves as such? I’m willing to bet most atheists have done quite a bit of “soul-searching” and in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary, allowed for many years the possibility of the existence of God. But possibility is one thing, and probability quite another. Some of us are unwilling to pin our hopes on, or dedicate our energies toward things that are certainly possible, but so improbable that they are unworthy of further consideration.
In fact, the possibility of the existence of gods can in some instances prove to be a hindrance to our motivation to help our fellow human beings. Members of one or another religion are less apt to help someone whose beliefs they feel are “wrong” than they are someone who subscribes to their own worldview. Or at the very least, their assistance comes with the strings of an attempt at conversion attached.
If anyone’s still interested in the original topic of this thread they can find a great source of info here…
Teacher sues to include religious beliefs of founding fathers Nov 25 2004. here is a page updating this story. April 2005 3 of 4 charges were thrown out as “wasting the courts time”.
http://www.eriposte.com/philosophy/fundamentalism/stevenscreek.htm
And another couple of updates:
From 12 August 2005:
And from 17 August:
Isn’t it amazing that this caused such a media frenzy and furor when Williams first filed suit—and yet now that he LOST (which we KNEW he would), there’s hardly ANY media coverage at all?
Damn.
Good riddance, there is no place for such insanity in public schools.
It is a shame we can not cull them all out.
All you need do is read the evidence from the case itself in the eRiposte article listed above to see very clearly that his case was bullshit.
Take note just who was making all the threats on peoples lives, the name calling, the lunacy, ALL came from Fundamentalist Christians.
The manure he was trying to pass of as History was nothing but the usual Christianized version which is all quotes out of context or outright fabrications.
THIS is what the school was trying to stop, not taking god or Christianity out the class, just taking the pure bullshit out.
He was clearly proselytizing a bunch of lies.
He & the ADF should be made to pay every penny the School had to shell out which is needed taxpayer dollars to fight this crap.
Ahh, the next wave in spamming: humans with keyboards.
It’s gone now. Just for the record, folks who host their sites on those “free 50MB webspace” servers will probably find that they’ve been blacklisted here at SEB. Those damn sites tend to be breeding grounds for these spammers so I end up banning the root URL and being done with it. Apologies to anyone who this inadvertently blocks, but it’s getting so out of hand that it has to be done.
Man you people are dense. He wasnt evangelizing. He was teaching a “FACT” in American history. I thought thats what you were all about. The facts. The FACT is that this nation was founded by Christians who came here because they didnt want to be persecuted for their faith. You guys have a very hard heart and most if not all you will probably take it to your grave. Sad indeed.
You’re ignorance is showing again. Go study up a bit more on history and then try again.
From stevenscreekparents.org:
Anyway. For anyone looking for an update…
Some people who came to the US were English people who went to the Netherlands for religious freedom but the Dutch thought they were a troublesome pack a bastards too. So they gave them a boat which was supposed to sink in the middle of the channel but they made it to Plymouth where they were given another so they could piss off.
I’m getting off track.
Fact. Those Pilgrim Fathers were settlers still under the control of the English Crown in America in about 1620.
Fact. They didn’t actually ‘found’ your US of A.
Fact. That was instigated in the late 1700s by the founding fathers who were definitely not xian. Your mob would have been called them atheists by today’s standards.
You see Meggi, this is where your learning took a plunge; from the truth all the way into the mire of xian fabricated bullshit which is cool coz xians have had much practice in the fabrication of bullshit and the less well-read suck it in as truth – you are the proof.
I went to a public school.