Colorado
After hearing from FFRF, the Englewood (Colo.) School system recently took action to ensure that a school counselor wouldn’t preach to students and colleagues.
A district employee reported that a school counselor at Englewood High School had been using his position to promote his personal religious beliefs to students and coworkers. FFRF’s complainant reported that the counselor had a bible quote in his email signature, “‘For as people think in their hearts, so they are.’ Proverbs 23:7.”
“When district employees use official channels of communication to promote their religious beliefs, it sends a message of exclusion that needlessly alienates the students and families who are among the 37 percent of Americans who are non-Christians, including the nearly one in three adult Americans who are religiously unaffiliated,” FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line wrote to the district.
The district’s legal counsel, Coulter M. Bump, from Caplan & Earnest Attorneys at Law, responded to FFRF’s concerns, reporting that action had been taken. “Upon receipt of your letter, the district’s deputy superintendent investigated the allegation and directed the employee to remove the Proverbs quote from the signature block of his email,” Bump wrote.
