Tennessee School District Settles Suit Challenging Religious Practices In Schools

The Cheatham County (TN) Board of Education voted Monday night to approve a settlement in a lawsuit alleging a pattern of religious activities in the county schools. (See prior posting.) The settlement order (full text) in Doe v. Cheatham County Board of Education, (MD TN, filed 11/16/2009), was announced in a press release by the ACLU of Tennessee that filed the lawsuit. Under the agreement, among other things school officials will not participate in or permit non-student third parties to offer prayers in conjunction with school events; will prevent non-student third parties (including the Gideons) from distributing Bibles during instructional time or at school events; will make a good faith effort not to hold school events at religious venues; will not knowingly let teachers promote personal religious beliefs to students during class or at school events; teachers will not cite sacred text as authority for historical or scientific fact to students in classes, or display religious symbols in class unless there is a pedagogical reason for doing so; and school teachers will not put religious beliefs or references to a deity on their school web pages.