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For-Credit Course Challenged

A South Carolinian released time program in Spartanburg School District 7 has been named as the defendant in a lawsuit filed on June 17, 2009, for offering religious courses for high school credit. This program, which is not affiliated with School Ministries, has offered these classes for two years.

The suit does not challenge the course itself but the credit that is offered. The plaintiffs are the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation and two District 7 parents. The focus of their complaint is with the SC Released Time Credit Act passed by the SC Legislature in 2006. This law allows up to two elective academic credits to be awarded for RTBE classes over a two-year period. The law also prescribes a number of requirements for how the courses are to be offered—such as the provision of a state certified teacher and grading of students’ performance.

Ken Breivik, SMI Executive Director, said “There is nothing that prevents such organizations, as the one in Wisconsin, from filing such suits. The goal that each RTBE program should have is to decrease the likelihood of such suits being successful.”

District 7 sued over credit for religion courses
Off-site Christianity courses challenged for offering credit

By LEE G. HEALY
lee.healy@shj.com

Published: Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 3:15 a.m.

Spartanburg School District 7 is named as the defendant in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday regarding religious course offerings for high school credit.

In the suit, the plaintiffs, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and two District 7 parents, Robert Moss and Ellen Tillett, argue that a religious education course offered to Spartanburg High School students for the past two years is unconstitutional.

The elective course is held at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, which is adjacent to SHS, and offered by Spartanburg County Bible Education in School Time. According to the SCBEST Web site, its high school curriculum entails Bible study on "historical background, archaeology, original languages, and other major scholarly discussions." A second part to the course aids students in examining how to live as Christians.

The suit doesn't challenge the course itself, but rather that credit is offered. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court approved released-time instruction that allows students to attend off-campus religious education classes with parental permission. In 2006, the S.C. Legislature approved that elective credit could be given for released-time classes in religious instruction as long as evaluations are based on purely secular criteria and no public funds are involved.

George Daly, a Charlotte, N.C., civil rights attorney who is representing the plaintiffs, said the law interferes with First Amendment rights separating church and state.

"The theory is that it not only hurts the government, but it hurts the church," Daly said. "If the church has to tone things down in order to be acceptable, that interferes with the strength of religion, and if the government has to adhere to religious truths rather than other truths, it interferes with the strength of the government."

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, said the case against the district is key in getting South Carolina law overturned.

"It is a very troubling precedent, and we felt we couldn't let it stand," Gaylor said. "It is an invasion of proselytizers in our school system that puts them on the same footing as a classroom teacher."

Gaylor said offering credit for the course not only gives Christian students an academic advantage but also crosses the line between educational and devotional.

"Fine, take their released time, but don't equate it with an academic class because the school is not determining the grade, this religious instructor is, and the school is just accepting it," Gaylor said.

"It's one thing to have the released time, but it's quite another thing for the school to be giving academic credit when they have no control over the teachers."

District 7 Superintendent Thomas White said he had no comment, but he did confirm that the district's attorney had been contacted regarding the suit.

For a copy of the news article about this suit, go to Spartanburg Herald Journal. http://www.goupstate.com/article/20090618/ARTICLES/906181044/1083/ARTICLES?Title=District-7-sued-over-credit-for-religion-courses