Texas Case Asserts Teacher's Right to Choose Christian Ed for Her Kids
by Jim Brown
March 18, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Texas jury will soon decide whether school districts can fire employees or deny them promotions if they refuse to take their children out of private Christian schools. The civil rights trial revolves around longtime teacher Karen Jo Barrow, who was denied an assistant principal position in the Greenville Unified School District.Barrow, who has had her principal's certificate for ten years and has taught for 15, alleges she was told by Superintendent Herman Smith that she had no future in the school district unless she removed her children from Christian school. But when she explained her religious objections to removing her children from the educational setting she had chosen for them, the teacher was denied the position and removed from the list of candidates. Instead the middle school principalship was given to an applicant who had not been recommended and who had not even completed the certification process.
According to Barrow's attorney, Kelly Shackelford of Liberty Legal Institute (LLI), a religious freedom case of this nature has never gone to trial. "To blackmail teachers -- to try forcing them to remove their children from Christian education -- would be a horrible change in the law and would affect millions of teachers and administrators," he says.
Shackelford feels the civil case, at its heart, is about a parent's basic prerogatives where his or her own offspring are concerned. "We don't see children as children of the state. They're the children of the parents," he explains, "and one of the most fundamental rights any parent has is [the right to decide] how to bring up and educate their child and whether they want to put them in a Christian or public or whatever school they feel is best for their own children."
Attorneys for the Greenville School District have attempted to justify Smith's actions by arguing that superintendents are under a great deal of pressure due to competition from charter and Christian schools. However, LLI is arguing that Barrow and other Christian parents have the right to choose religious education for their children without government retribution.
Smith also attempted to claim qualified immunity in the matter, initially arguing that Ms. Barrow's right to select private school education for her children was not clearly established at the time he refused to consider her application for the principal's position. The U.S. District Court in Dallas had ruled against the teacher, declaring that a parent's right to choose private education is not a fundamental right. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed that ruling with a 3-0 decision in favor of Barrow and LLI.
Now, Shackelford is pleased to note, it will be a group of Barrow's peers who will decide whether or not the Christian parent and veteran teacher was the victim of unconstitutional discrimination. "In this case," the attorney observes, "we not only have a jury, we have a jury who's going to decide whether the United States Constitution was violated by the government."
Emphasizing the momentous nature of the situation, Shackelford adds, "The government is actually having to stand trial before a group of American citizens, and those jurors are going to look at the government and say either 'you did' or 'you did not violate the constitution.' What a wonderful system, where the government is subject to the people."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
