The Gideons will no longer hand out bibles during graduation ceremonies at St. Johns River State College, a public school in Palatka, Fla., thanks to action taken by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
FFRF received a complaint from a concerned student who was recently a part of a ceremony at the public college, during which the Gideons were allowed to hand out bibles. FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel contacted one of the college’s general counsels in a Feb. 12 letter.
“This matter is especially troublesome in light of the wide range of cultures and faiths that were represented at graduation,” Seidel said. “The culmination of years of secular, publicly funded education should not end in an exclusionary distribution of bibles at the hands of a faculty member.”
The Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the college responded in a March 6 email to say there will no longer be bible distributions at the college’s ceremonies.
