The Freedom From Religion Foundation has ensured that Tennessee’s Cocke County School District will no longer unconstitutionally organize baccalaureate ceremonies.
FFRF wrote to the district after being informed that Cosby High School had held a baccalaureate service at Northport Baptist Church in Newton, Tenn., on Sunday, May 5. The event was hosted by a district elementary teacher after being promoted on the district’s facebook page.
“It is well-settled law that public schools may not show favoritism toward nor coerce belief or participation in religion,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi wrote to the district’s Director of Schools Manney Moore.
Baccalaureate programs are religious services with prayer and worship and that’s why schools may not plan, design or host baccalaureate programs, FFRF emphasized. By hosting and promoting a baccalaureate ceremony, districts are demonstrating clear favoritism towards religion over nonreligion — and Christianity over all other faiths. That favoritism enlarges when district employees organize and host the service. By hosting and promoting these services, the district abdicated this duty — needlessly alienating the almost half of Generation Z that is religiously unaffiliated.
The district heard Joshi’s words and decided to sharpen up its respect for the Constitution.
“CCSS does plan to pay particular attention to instruct their employees to not be overly assertive with regard to their religious beliefs when acting in their official capacity as a government employee,” the legal counsel for the Cocke County School District recently responded. “Further, CCSS plans to refrain from posting any announcement of a baccalaureate service on their official Facebook page or any other CCSS social media platform.”
FFRF takes great pride in keeping end-of-year celebrations secular in public schools.
“Students do not need to be reminded of religion when they are celebrating the prior 13 years of educational achievements,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “FFRF will always look to keep students’ First Amendment rights protected.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation serves as the nation’s largest association of freethinkers, with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including almost 500 members and a chapter in Tennessee, and works as a state/church watchdog to safeguard the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.
