Monday, November 01, 2004

Student's Religious Rights Violated?

According to CNN, the family of a Liverpool, New York fourth-grader are suing because they say the public school system would not allow their little girl to distribute flyers to other children during, "non-instructional time."

The flyers say, "Hi! My name is___ and I would like to tell you about my life and how Jesus Christ gave me a new one." It goes on to give five different ways in which Jesus had come into her life.

Superintendent of Liverpool's schools, Jan Matousek, declined to give a statement. She said that as she had not been informed of the suit, she could not comment. (We here at the 'Wonks don't believe that one for a second; in fact, we wonder if her nose got any larger after that utterance.)

The Education Wonks believe that the district would have been much better served by simply letting the girl pass out her flyers. This would have then been a non-incident. With all the problems that the schools have right now, why are they looking to pick a fight over something like this?