Constitutional Law

Federal Judge Orders Halt To Bible Distribution At Louisiana Public School

Earlier in the week, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered a public school board there to halt a practice of allowing Bible distribution at an elementary school.

Last year after Principal Andre Pellerin of Loranger Middle School in Tangipahoa Parish allowed an evangelical group, Gideons International, to distribute the Bibles to fifth-graders outside of Pellerin’s office, parents complained about the practice.

One fifth-grader said that she feared being taunted by her peers if she did not take a Bible. The student’s parents sued the school board after it refused to bar distribution of Bibles. Judge Carl J. Barbier, in an 11-page ruling, said the school board’s practice of allowing the Bible distribution was a violation of the First Amendment principle of the separation of church and state. Barbier found that the school board had no secular purpose for allowing the Bible distribution and that in elementary schools, students should not be coerced to engage in religious activities.

The court concluded, in part, that the Bible distribution was “ultimately coercive” as the fifth-grader “was pressured to accept a Bible” in violation of federal court precedent and that the distribution of Bibles “is a religious activity without a secular purpose.”

The school board, which has a long history of defending policies against First Amendment challenges, voted quickly to appeal Barbier’s ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Board Attorney Chris Moody told The Advocate, a Baton Rouge daily, that the school board was “very disappointed with the judge’s decision.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on April 25, 2008 (boomark / email).