Kindergarten Censorship

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide soon whether to hear a case involving a school district’s censorship of a kindergartner’s art poster that contained a picture of Jesus. Representing Antonio Peck, the student whose poster was censored, Liberty Counsel filed a brief late yesterday with the Court.

When attending kindergarten at the Baldwinsville Elementary School in Syracuse, New York, Antonio’s teacher instructed the class to draw posters regarding their understanding of the environment. Antonio drew a poster depicting children holding hands circling the globe, people picking up garbage and recycling trash. The left side depicted Jesus with one knee to the ground and two hands stretched toward the sky, although Jesus was not named. This poster was displayed for half a day on the cafeteria wall, along with 80 other student posters, during an event where parents were invited to view their children’s artwork. But unlike the other kindergarten posters, school officials folded Antonio’s poster in half in order to censor Jesus. School officials said the poster violated “church and state” and would give the impression that the school was teaching religion, even though the poster was clearly a kindergartner’s artwork. Folding the poster made it look odd. Antonio’s name at the bottom was cut in half. When he saw his poster folded, Antonio felt ashamed in front of his classmates and his parents, because school officials told him and his parents why his poster was folded. He then assumed he did something wrong and was being punished. When school officials refused to remedy the matter, apologize or adopt a policy to prevent future censorship, Liberty Counsel filed suit.

In 2000, the federal trial court ruled that the school had the right to censor the poster because of “church and state” concerns. On March 28, 2001, a court of appeals, in a 3-0 decision, reversed the decision and sent the case back to the trial court. In 2004, the same federal trial court judge again ruled for the school. Liberty Counsel appealed, and on October 18, 2005, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals again ruled 3-0 in favor of Antonio. The Second Circuit joined the Ninth and the Eleventh Circuits in holding that public schools may not censor a student’s viewpoint on a permissible subject matter when it is responsive to a school assignment or program. The First and Tenth circuits hold that viewpoint discrimination in the curricular context may be permissible. The School District filed a Petition requesting that the Supreme Court hear the case and rule that school districts may censor religious viewpoints of students. Liberty Counsel’s Brief argues that the Second Circuit’s decision that schools may not censor religious viewpoints of students is correct. Liberty Counsel’s brief also points out that Justice Samuel Alito, while on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that schools may not censor religious viewpoints of students when they address permissible subjects in response to class assignments or instruction.

Why school officials went out of their way to humiliate a kindergarten student in front of his parents and classmates can only stem from antagonism to his Christian viewpoint. Common sense dictates that no one would assume the school indoctrinated students in religion simply because one kid’s drawing contained an unidentified religious figure. If the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, we anticipate it will agree with the ruling by the court of appeals that public schools may not discriminate against religious viewpoints of students when they address permissible subjects in response to class assignments.

Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel for Liberty Counsel, the source of this original article.