Ten down

In an effort to placate the Freedom From Religion Foundation's continuing threats of litigation, the public school board of Giles County, just west of Roanoke, voted Tuesday to remove all displays of the Ten Commandments from district high schools, despite requests from local parents and ministers to the contrary.

The decision came only a week after Del. Bill Carrico's (R-5th District) amendment to the state constitution died in subcommittee. His proposal, which met fierce opposition from the ACLU and other groups, sought to protect the exercise of voluntary prayer in public schools.

"The ACLU is infamous for instilling fear in people for illegitimate reasons," Carrico said. "They are, in my opinion, a very Nazi type organization that operates out of fear."

It's no secret that groups such as the ACLU and FFRF make a living from "filing lawsuits," which is in the FFRF's published mission. However, the extent of its activity - and the frequency with which schools bow to their demands - is much less clear.

According to Alliance Defense Fund civil rights attorney Matthew Sharp, the ACLU sent a letter last year to the superintendent of every school district in the state of Tennessee - approximately 140 districts - threatening litigation for recognizing "Christmas" in their holiday displays.

Such activity, he said, is fairly typical for states across the country, including Virginia.

"They always imply that we could be sued or taken to court," said Bath County High School Principal Peter Pitard, who receives letters from the ACLU on a yearly basis. "It's just part of their modus operandi of sorts - that hidden little threat."

Noticeably missing from the ACLU's mailing list are the more liberal-leaning districts of Virginia. Charlottesville High School, for example, has not received a letter from the ACLU in over two years.

With the ACLU harnessing what could amount to a "targeted" mailing campaign against Virginia's more conservative school districts, there seems to be growing concern that the group's influence is so substantial that school districts are unable to refuse their demands, regardless of what the law actually says.

"The tendency is to cave into their demands more often than not," said attorney Matt Sharp. "My gut instinct says that the ACLU has been fairly effective in their campaign of misinformation and bullying schools."

According to Sharp, while current law clearly prohibits a school from advocating one religious belief over another, individual students remain free to exercise their faith as they see fit, from bringing their Bible to school to praying during their Valedictorian speech. However, because litigation threats from the ACLU, FFRF, and other groups are so common, schools often discourage such activity or prohibit it altogether.

An incident at Gates City High School two years ago, which formed the impetus behind Carrico's proposal to amend the state constitution, is one example. While addressing the crowd at the high school's September 11th football game, a student offered a short prayer for the victims of 9/11 and for the family members of a young football player who had recently died.

The ACLU got wind of the incident, sent the principal a letter, and by the end of the year, the school had prohibited all voluntary public prayer.

"The reason the Supreme Court has issued so many decisions on prayer in public schools is that the subject is delicate and requires a nuanced understanding of the true meaning of religious liberty," said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis in a news release regarding Del. Carrico's proposal. "The high court's goal has always been to protect the right of students and others to embrace and express their own religious beliefs while making certain there is no hint of religious coercion."

Ultimately, both the ACLU and FFRF say that they remain committed to upholding "separation of church and state" and, more specifically, current Supreme Court rulings. When it comes to prayer over a high school's PA system or, especially, 4-foot displays of the Ten Commandments, they believe that current interpretations of the U.S. constitution have already answered any lingering questions.

"[T]he United States Supreme Court has definitively ruled that display of the Ten Commandments in public schools violates the First Amendment," the ACLU said in its letter to the Giles County School Board. "…by instructing children in a particular religious creed, the school usurps parents' fundamental right to direct their children's religious upbringing."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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