Court Voids Ruling Banning Textbooks

A federal appeals court Wednesday reversed an Alabama judge’s order that had banned 44 textbooks from Alabama public schools for promoting what the judge called a godless, humanistic religion.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled U.S. District Judge W. Brevard Hand’s order had turned the First Amendment requirement that the government be neutral on the subject of religion “into an affirmative obligation to speak about religion.”

The ruling, which also ordered Hand to dismiss a lawsuit brought by parents, cleared the way for the textbooks to be used in Alabama classrooms.

Excluded Religion

In March, Hand banned the textbooks because he said 39 history and social studies books improperly excluded references to religion and five home economics books promoted “secular humanism,” which Hand described as a religion.

Although the court on Wednesday refused to decide whether secular humanism is a religion, it said there was no proof that Alabama promoted it by using the home economics books.

Secular humanism is described by religious fundamentalists as the belief that man should solve his problems without the aid of God.

Alabama School Supt. Wayne Teague said he was pleased with the ruling. He said the state Board of Education acted properly when it adopted the textbooks that Hand found objectionable.

Arthur J. Kropp, executive director of People for the American Way, called the ruling “just plain good sense.”

“Judge Hand’s ruling was an injustice to America’s schoolchildren,” Kropp said. “Today’s ruling rights that wrong. Secular humanism is no religion; it’s a rallying cry for the religious right, a catchall for everything they disagree with about public education in America.”

Robert Skolrood, executive director of the National Legal Foundation, called the decision a tremendous blow to religious freedom in the United States.

“It is clear Christians no longer have equal standing before the court,” Skolrood said in a statement from the foundation’s offices in Virginia Beach, Va. “It is a tragedy that, in this year of our Constitution’s bicentennial, the court has decided to disenfranchise a majority of Americans.”

Lawyer Bob Sherling of Mobile, who represented the plaintiffs, said he had expected an unfavorable ruling and would appeal.

The ruling overturning Hand’s decision followed a federal appeals court decision Monday that struck another blow against fundamentalists.

Offended Their Beliefs

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that the First Amendment rights of seven families in Tennessee were not violated by public school textbooks that the plaintiffs said offended their Christian beliefs.

The ruling also threw out a lower court ruling that awarded those families more than $50,000 for private school tuition and other expenses.

The appeals panel said Wednesday there was no question that the purpose behind using 39 history and social studies books was secular. The judges said there was nothing to indicate that “omission of certain facts regarding religion from these textbooks of itself constituted an advancement of secular humanism.”

Hand issued the order against the books after drastically amending a lawsuit to allow prayer in Alabama schools. He ruled in the original lawsuit that Alabama could allow prayer in schools, but was overruled by the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hand then realigned the parties in the case to set up the textbook challenge.

A group of 600 parents and teachers, sponsored in part by fundamentalists, had filed the original lawsuit.