ACLU v. Sumner County Schools

I mentioned that it might happen a few weeks ago, but in case you missed it, the Tennessee ACLU did end up filing a lawsuit against Sumner County Schools on May 2nd.  Case number 3:2011-cv-00408 basically alleges many of the same things as in Cheatham and Wilson counties (especially as regards the Gideons).  First, the Defendants are:

• The Sumner County Board of Education
• Director of Schools Benny Bills
• Board Member Tim Brewer
• Board Member David Brown
• Board Member Beth Cox
• Board Member Andy Daniels
• Board Member Will Duncan
• Board Member Shannon Dunn
• Board Member Glenn Gregory
• Board Member Danny Hale
• Board Member Don Long
• Board Member Vanessa Silkwood
• Board Member Ted Wise
• Beech High School Principal Frank Cardwell
• T.W. Hunter Middle School Principal Ahmed White
• Robert E. Ellis Middle School Principal Opal Poe
• Madison Creek Elementary School Principal Robin Hood
• Indian Lake Elementary School Principal Jewell McGhee

Here are a few highlights from the Complaint [pdf] (by the way, most of these will be screen shots; the uploaded documents are not OCR’d, so you can’t copy/paste):

So yeah, there’s the Gideon stuff.  Like I’ve said before, you really can’t do that kind of stuff.  You just can’t.

I’m sure some people are going to be irritated that the invocation stuff is included in there.  After all, we have invocations at every meeting of the General Assembly in Nashville, and at basically every session of Congress as well.  Prayer over the loud speaker, though?  Even by students, not OK.

This is pretty similar to details alleged in the Cheatham County Schools suit.  Except for the last part.  If it’s true, that’s way out of bounds. Teachers can’t be leading Bible studies at school.

This is the one that I’ve heard about personally.  WAAAAY out of bounds and really where the principals of these schools become highly implicated.  It’s one thing to have your staff doing things they shouldn’t really be doing or to have some religious activity going on that shouldn’t be happening (not that any of that is really OK).  It’s another thing altogether to let an outside person, and not a parent as far as I know, come in and proselytize to public school children.  If I had to guess, I’d bet that it was these visits that sparked the lawsuit.

There’s a lot more in the Complaint, so check it out.

Other than that, the ACLU filed for a temporary restraining order (Motion is here [pdf] and Memorandum in Support is here [pdf]) asking for the cessation of all activities that violate the 1st Amendment, including:

1) Prohibiting the Ellis Middle School drug awareness (“TAATU”) event from taking place at a place of worship on May 3, 2011; 2) the immediate removal of religious iconography from the classroom, 3) barring members of the public from having unmonitored access to students during the school day; 4) the cessation of prayer over the loudspeaker during the school day; and 5) prohibiting teachers or administrators from signaling their endorsement of a particular religious faith by endorsing, leading or otherwise visually or orally participating in prayer alongside students at school club meetings or events.

That Motion was denied (see Order here [pdf]) because the only “imminent” problem that might have had to be rectified immediately was the drug awareness program being held at Long Hollow Baptist Church.  The Court found that the program itself was secular and that the use of church facilities for such a program was not “excessive entanglement” under the law such as to violate the 1st Amendment.  The other parts of the requested temporary restraining order are not, in the Court’s opinion, as urgent in nature, so the Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order was denied as a whole.

Currently there’s a case management conference scheduled for June 22, but it looks like some of the Plaintiffs’ attorneys are going to be out of town, so they’re trying to move it.  More details as things progress.