(Click photo to enlarge)
The Freedom From Religion Foundation effectively reacted to protect South Carolina students’ First Amendment rights after a state representative touted Christianity in a letter included in a school district’s graduation materials.
A concerned Spartanburg School District One parent reported that on May 20, students graduating from Landrum High School received a senior packet assembled by the school, which contained a letter from South Carolina state Rep. Josiah Magnuson. This letter featured evangelistic statements, such as “Be mindful to acknowledge and honor the omnipotent Person who our Founders sacredly named in the Declaration of Independence as Nature’s God, the Creator, the Supreme Judge of the World, and divine Providence,” and “By building your faith in Christ you can stand firm to meet the unknown and overcome every obstacle.” This letter also quotes Proverbs 9:10 (“The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding”) before saying, “I urge you to read and meditate on His Word.”
FFRF emphasized the disrespect toward students coming from an elected official via this overtly religious letter.
“Public schools may not show favoritism toward or coerce belief or participation in religion,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle J. Steinberg wrote to the district. “By distributing a religious letter from a state representative to all graduating students, the district displays blatant favoritism for religion over nonreligion, and Christianity above all other faiths.”
High school graduation is a once-in-a-lifetime event that students spend over a decade working toward and distributing a proselytizing letter to graduating students marginalizes those students and families who are not religious, FFRF pointed out. As much as 37 percent of the American population is non-Christian, with 30 percent nonreligious. Additionally, at least a third of Generation Z members (those born after 1996) have no religion, with a recent survey revealing that almost half of them qualify as religiously unaffiliated “Nones.”
Thankfully, FFRF’s words of reason connected with the district.
After FFRF’s letter, Superintendent Mark Smith confirmed via email that he had taken action regarding the issue: “I have already had a phone conference with a concerned parent about this situation and I explained to this parent our new processes that we will implement this school year to make sure all graduation materials that are distributed to students have been properly vetted and approved by school administration.”
FFRF is pleased to learn that the district will work from now on to prevent students’ rights of conscience from being trampled on.
“The inclusion of a proselytizing letter is already an egregious violation, but the fact that it came from a public official just adds insult to injury,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “The district has a responsibility to keep students safe from outside figures wishing to indoctrinate them into religion. We sincerely hope the district will know better than to allow such a lapse of judgment in the future.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 42,000 members nationwide, including more than 300 members in South Carolina. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
