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Declaration of
By Dan
Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A
California teacher has been barred by his school from giving students
documents from American history that refer to God -- including the
Declaration of Independence. Steven Williams, a
fifth-grade teacher at "It's a fact of American
history that our founders were religious men, and to hide this fact from
young fifth-graders in the name of political correctness is outrageous and
shameful," said Williams' attorney, Terry Thompson. "Williams wants to teach
his students the true history of our country," he said. "There is
nothing in the Establishment Clause (of the U.S. Constitution) that prohibits
a teacher from showing students the Declaration of Independence." Vidmar could
not be reached for comment on the lawsuit, which was filed on Monday in U.S.
District Court in Phyllis Vogel, assistant
superintendent for Williams asserts in the
lawsuit that since May he has been required to submit all of his lesson plans
and supplemental handouts to Vidmar for approval,
and that the principal will not permit him to use any that contain references
to God or Christianity. Among the materials she has
rejected, according to Williams, are excerpts from the Declaration of
Independence, George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, Samuel Adams'
"The Rights of the Colonists" and William Penn's "The Frame of
Government of Pennsylvania." "He hands out a lot of
material and perhaps 5 to 10 percent refers to God and Christianity because
that's what the founders wrote," said Thompson, a lawyer for the
Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates for religious freedom. "The
principal seems to be systematically censoring material that refers to
Christianity and it is pure discrimination." In June, the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to hear the case of a |
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