Apr 01 2008
School Hypocrisy as Christian art fails and Demonic art passes
Now, let me state outright that if the grade was due to the quality, this would not be on my blog.
It wasn’t. It was because the religious artist had the audacity to include a scriptural reference on his.
See the pictures below. First, the failing art:
Now the two that passed:
And:
So all three are of fairly equal quality and show great talent by the artist.
The problem? The bible verse in the first picture.
Via Michelle Malkin:
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Tomah Area School District over an unconstitutional policy that bars religious free speech. Citing a policy prohibiting depictions of “blood, violence, sexual connotations, [or] religious beliefs,” officials penalized a Christian student for his artwork depicting a Bible verse and a cross but did not penalize students who included demonic illustrations in their artwork.
“Christian students shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs. It is unconstitutional for the school to punish students simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “Further, teachers are not permitted to censor Christian religious expression in artwork while at the same time allowing other types of religious depictions.”
A student at Tomah High School drew a landscape picture for an art class containing a road, clouds, and mountains with a cross in the background and the words “JOHN 3:16 – A sign of love” written in the sky. The teacher of the class told the student to either remove the scriptural reference or cover it up with a border.
The teacher cited a document that the student and all other students in the class had been required to sign at the beginning of the semester which prevented them from creating artwork with the prohibited depictions. After the teacher said that the student had “signed away his First Amendment rights,” the student respectfully protested by tearing the signed document in half.
“The student was correct. A public school cannot require students to sign away their constitutional right to free speech and religious expression,” Cortman explained. “Furthermore, other students created artwork in violation of this illegitimate policy, but no action was taken against them. Only our client was singled out.”
The teacher gave the student a grade of zero for the assignment. The student also received two detentions.
At issue then is whether the policy is legal or not. Here is the complaint.
This goes to the heart of the 1st Amendment and is yet another abuse of a constitutional freedom that was designed to protect religion, not suppress it. Nothing in the actual 1st Amendment prohibits a student from using his faith and values to influence his artist expression. The policy clearly steps over the line into suppression of religion, while quasi religious images such as demons are acceptable.
Fox news says:
Student Sues Wisconsin School After Getting a Zero for Religious Drawing
Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.
The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw “demonic” images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.
“We hear so much today about tolerance,” said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. “But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message.”
And there is more:
Sometime after that meeting, the boy’s metals teacher rejected his idea to build a chain-mail cross, telling him it was religious and could offend someone, the lawsuit claims. The boy decided in March to shelve plans to make a pin with the words “pray” and “praise” on it because he was afraid he’d get a zero for a grade.
Of course the school must be consistent, so no other faiths are represented, right?
Wrong:
The lawsuit also alleges school officials allow other religious items and artwork to be displayed on campus.
A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students.
In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo’s “The Creation of Man” is displayed at the school’s entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school’s hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board.
Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges.
A.P. suffered unequal treatment because of his religion even though student expression is protected by the First Amendment, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday.
“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” the lawsuit said. “No compelling state interest exists to justify the censorship of A.P.’s religious expression.”
So other faiths can not only be represented, but can even be taught? Nice.
More from this editorial by Grant Swank:
Christian gets zero grade for Jesus cross art
It’s a drawing of a cross and then a reference to “John 3:16 a sign of love.”
The Tomah Wisconsin High School senior submitted the artwork and was graded with a zero. Other students submitted demonic images and that was okay. The art teacher said the Christian depiction was out of bounds.
America has gone nuts in some places — education for one major site. It’s a crime. It’s another sign of the Republic’s collapse. Downing dollars. Upping gases. And mistreatment of a teen believer by a “teacher” Julie Millin.
Fire her.
She even taunted him by telling him that the Scripture reference made some students uncomfortable therefore he had to remove it. He would not remove it. She graded him with the zero.
Fire her.
All the while, Muslims get their prayer rooms, wash basins for their feet, and freedom of speech via 4000 websites to blow up North America. They get their special menus sans pork while seated in prisons. Even the Koran is placed by George W. Bush in the White House library, all midst a Ramadan ceremony dinner for Muslim guests.
Grant gets the final word:
This is America?
Indeed. My America respects faith, it does not suppress it.
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7 Responses to “School Hypocrisy as Christian art fails and Demonic art passes”
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Freedom of Expression, what’s that?…
(via Michelle Malkin) No crosses, you damned religious extremist… er, art student.
MADISON, Wis. — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Tomah Area School District over an unconstitutional policy that bars r…
Ok.
I am a current student going to Tomah High School in Tomah, Wisconsin, where this scandel is taking place.
I just started at the high school this year. I am a freshman.
I am also a Christan who has studied into this sort of the thing before.
The School District is bound to lose this lawsuit because of the evidence that is shown to the media.
Yes there is plenty of other religious artwork at the high school that I pass nearly every day….
I also happen to know the teacher that teaches adamently about Hindu religion. We, as a World History class, spent much time on Hinduism and much less time on other religions so far. I do not have the teacher but yes I have seen the Hindu and Buddist figurines before.
Therefore the school district is being extremely biased. Shouldn’t Christianity be allowed to have its representation in the school as the other religions do?
I also happen to have Julie Millian as my Drawing 1 teacher.
If I were to decide that I wished to do something religious for my next project and she gave me a zero for it I would do the same as A.P. did.
I would take them to court and I would most likely win, because it says in Wisconsin School State Stature about this.
This is a fight for our religious rights as students.
If I’m being completely honest, I really don’t think the first project was anywhere near as good as the others, insofar as talent is concerned.
However, schools shouldn’t grade art for “talent”, because talent is not something which can be taught. Instead, schools should grade art based upon whether the student has mastered the medium, regardless of how good the end result may be.
I don’t think the student should have been punished for making an art project with a religious theme. That’s crazy. Art expresses the soul, and if you take the soul out of art …. well, you get crap like Andy Warhol’s soup can. So from that viewpoint alone, I think they need to can the art teacher.
We actually had an experience with religious art in schools, but it was far more positive.
When Elf was in elementary school, he had an art project wherein the children would tear construction paper randomly without looking at it as they were tearing, and they had to make something of the pieces by pasting them onto an untorn piece of paper. He made what kind of looked like a duck with a hat.
Then the teacher said students had to name their art. He thought the hat looked like something one might see on a fundamentalist Jewish person, so he named it “A Jewish Duck”.
Bear in mind, we are not Jewish. He was just a kid who had to come up with a name for something he had made out of random scraps of paper; and his true talent is in words, not pictures, so he managed to capture imaginations.
That piece of art made it to the county art show, because they assumed he was celebrating his faith. While that wasn’t at all what he was doing - in truth, he was bullshitting his way through an art project - it was good to know that incorporating faith into art was respected in that school district.
Ok. Let me just clear this up.
The first one was done by a Drawing 1 Student.
The other two were done by students in Drawing 2 or 3.
I’m not sure why that matters, but thanks for taking the time to tell us.
lsu
I am a student at the Tomah High School. I am also an art student with Mrs. Millin. I am also a devout Catholic and I strongly agree in God. however. there are guidelines at the school for reasons. I completely understand why religious, gang related, and violence depictions, etc. are not allowed. These rules were clearly stated in writing and through a verbal communication to the students at the start of the class, day one of the semester. In no way, shape, or form should Mrs. Millin be put down, and ridiculed for doing HER JOB. She cant even defend herself due to the lawsuit and such. If she were to grade that art project against the school policy she could have been fired. A few students have listened and paid attention to new pieces of information regarding the law suit, and i know for a fact that these students feel sympathetic towards the two art teachers. These art teachers are superb. They pass on what they know to their students. These two ladies are a few of the nicest people i’ve met, and it hurts me to see and read and hear that all the rest of the world who have heard about this silly lawsuit are against these two women. These people are judging without even giving them a chance, and without thinking about the other side of the story.
Also, i would like to make it known, that in our art classes, if we want to add violence and blood and gore, or religious symbols and depictions to our drawings, we can. Mrs. Millin just tells us to add them when we get home, after she has graded them so we DONT get zeros.
Stephanie,
I appreciate what you are saying, but the policies are unbalanced. I cannot find a valid reason to ban art that expresses religion. The fact is that art should reflect the soul of the artist, and artificial rules to keep it bland are counterproductive to creativity.
Not to mention that many religious people are offended by demonic representations, which often contain an inherent violent nature.
That was not considered in passing the other art.
The bottom line is that while the policies may have been known ahead of time, they are bad ones, and should be repealed.
LSU