Judge rules against district

Judge rules against district
Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 6:10 am by Chad Smith
A federal judge ruled Wednesday the St. Johns County School District, a school principal and two teachers violated two students’ First Amendment rights by making them choose between practicing what he called a “proselytizing” and “sectarian” country music song for an end-of-the-year assembly or sitting out the entire performance.

For the past few months students at The Webster School had practiced “In God We Still Trust,” a song released in 2005 by Diamond Rio, before two parents and their third-graders filed a lawsuit in protest last month.

In their suit, they asked the court to grant them a temporary injunction to prevent the song from being performed.



In a hearing on the injunction last week, a judge heard from both sides.

Defense attorneys said the song had been removed from the program after parents first complained. Even if it hadn’t been, they argued, past court rulings on religious songs in schools deemed it appropriate.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who were identified only by their initials to protect the identities of the children, countered that “In God We Still Trust” did not compare to the academically studied music the defense referred to. Further, they said, the song was a clear violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state, a canon the song ironically condemned.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor.

“In God We Still Trust” is a “song overtly espousing a specific religious viewpoint and attacking of those who do not share in the same belief,” Schlesinger wrote in a 24-page decision.

William Sheppard, an attorney for the plaintiffs, declined to comment, as did school district Superintendent Joseph Joyner, who said he hadn’t heard about the judge’s ruling until he was asked to comment on it.

In a statement to The St. Augustine Record after the lawsuit was filed, Joyner dismissed the parents as “someone again using the school system (as well as taxpayers’ money to defend the lawsuit) for their own personal agenda.”

A telephone message left for one of the district’s attorneys was not returned Wednesday.

Schlesinger also wrote that, as third-graders, the younger plaintiffs are “more easily influenced by their teachers” and “extremely sensitive to signs of disapproval and disappointment from the same teachers and their classmates.”

To that end, the defense — which includes the school district, Webster Principal George Leidigh and the two teachers in charge of the program, Dawn Caronna and Debbie Moore — “ostracized the objecting students from their classmates and effectively penalized them for exercising their constitutional right to object,” the judge ruled.

Also on Wednesday, the judge filed a separate ruling against the defense, and the defense filed two separate motions to throw out the lawsuit.

Citing procedural issues, Schlesinger threw out the affidavits signed by the Leidigh and the two teachers in which they denied telling students they had to choose between performing the song and sitting out the recital.

The defense filed two motions — one on behalf of the school district and the other on behalf of Leidigh, Caronna and Moore — requesting the judge throw out the suit.

The first motion contended the lawsuit “fails to allege a constitutional deprivation” against the school district. Further, the district can’t be sued if its employees deprive plaintiffs’ of their constitutional rights.

Attorneys used a similar argument for Leidigh and argued the allegations against the teachers were too vague.

More important, they said, past litigation muddied the issue over religious songs in schools, giving the defendants “qualified immunity,” meaning they did not knowingly violate constitutional rights.

LYRICS

“In God We Still Trust,” released in 2005 by country band Diamond Rio.

You place your hand on his Bible

When you swear to tell the truth

His name is on our greatest monuments

And all our money too

And when we pledge allegiance

There’s no doubt where we stand

There’s no separation

We’re one nation under him

[Chorus]

In God we still trust

Here in America

He’s the one we turn to

When the going gets rough

He is the source of all our strength

The one who watches over us

Here in America

In God we still trust

Now there are those among us

Who want to push him out

And erase his name from everything

This country’s all about

From the schoolhouse to the courthouse

They’re silencing his word

Now it’s time for all believers

To make our voices heard

[Chorus repeated]