Sacramento, Ca..—Despite the fact that Brad Johnson, a respected 30-year veteran teacher in San Diego’s Poway Unified School District, had displayed several education banners in his classroom referencing “God” for nearly 25 years, school officials nonetheless ordered him to take them down. The reason the school officials gave for ordering the removal of the banners was that they promoted a “Judeo-Christian” viewpoint.
In 25 years, however, not one single complaint was made about the wall display.
The banners contained the following “offensive” phrases: “In God We Trust,” the official motto of the United States; “One Nation Under God,” the 1954 amendment to the Pledge of Allegiance; “God Bless America,” a patriotic song considered to be the unofficial national anthem of the United States; “God Shed His Grace On Thee,” a line from “America the Beautiful,” a popular patriotic song; and “All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator,” an excerpt from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.
School officials objected to the banners because they included the words “God” and “Creator.” “Cleansing our Nation’s classrooms of our religious heritage and history and imposing viewpoint restrictions on speech to silence such expressions advance no legitimate educational purpose. In fact, such actions undermine the primary purpose of public education: to prepare students for citizenship in our Republic,” stated Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, the public interest law firm defending Mr. Johnson’s religious liberty.
Karen England serves as executive director of the Capitol Resource Institute.
