Four parents yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against the Bossier Parish, Louisiana school board alleging widespread Establishment Clause violations. The complaint (
full text) in
Does 1-4 v. Bossier Parish School Board, (WD LA, Feb. 7, 2018) alleges in part:
3. School officials throughout the Bossier Parish School System regularly deliver or promote the delivery of Christian prayers at school-sponsored events. Prayers begin and often end graduation ceremonies, sporting events, sports teams’ practices and banquets, pep rallies, and student-council meetings. Many of these school-sponsored events are also held in churches, including within the sanctuary or other rooms bearing religious iconography, thus creating an atmosphere closer to Sunday school than to public school.
4. What is more, some Bossier Parish teachers proselytize during class, pray aloud for students, require young students to memorize sectarian prayers, and tell students of all religious backgrounds that to be a good person one be Christian. Bossier Parish teachers and administrators have also placed religious displays in their classrooms and offices, advertised events sponsored by local churches, and incorporated religious teachings, beliefs, or doctrine, like Creationism, into the curriculum. Further, some Bossier Parish teachers, staff, and administrators have endorsed and conferred special favors on sectarian religious clubs and have developed practices that expose the private beliefs of students who do not wish to participate in these organizations, subjecting these children to coercive pressure to join, and ostracization by their classmates if they do not.
Americans United issued a
press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
