Jesus statue triggers free speech debate

Two students who displayed a statuette of Jesus at Mount Abraham Union High School in Bristol last week were asked by the principal to remove it, setting off a controversy. The decision upset the students and their teacher, Richard Steggarda, who say the display was part of a project for an Advanced Placement English class. All three believe principal Paulette Bogan's actions represent a violation of the students' right to free speech."I guess what I'm upset about is that we have no rights," Steggarda said Thursday.He and the students disagree with Bogan about how and why the plastic statue was displayed. The controversy began May 16 when junior Torin Olivetti and senior Galen Helms, both of Monkton, displayed a 2-foot-tall statue of Jesus in an area where students congregate, a second-floor balcony over the main lobby of the public school.Bogan says several people complained to her office about the display of the statue, with some saying it was disrespectful and others questioning whether it was appropriate for a religious symbol to be on display in school.Bogan went to the balcony and found the statue on the floor in a student walkway, she said. "I asked them what their purpose was, and they said their purpose was to basically make people smile," Bogan said Thursday. "I told them that it needed to be removed from the walkway."The students gave no indication that the display was connected to their English curriculum, nor was the display respectful, Bogan said. "The students certainly did not convey that it was a project on religious symbols, anything but."She called for the removal of the statue because it violated School Board policy that says student presentations and displays should serve to exhibit academic work or educate and inform the Mount Abraham community. This one didn't, in her view.The students and their teacher see the matter differently. The statue display was part of an academic project, and not designed to be derisive, Steggarda said. "In my opinion, if it were belittling or humiliating a group, no, I would not give them permission to do this."He has contacted the Vermont-American Civil Liberties Union to see what recourse the students have in the wake of Bogan's order to remove the statue.Steggarda said the project called for students to explore a theme from one of the books they read this year in his AP English course, an honors class with a curriculum designed by the College Board. Students who do well on AP exams are allowed to skip introductory classes or earn course credits at some colleges.The Jesus statue project was primarily conceived by Helms, who asked Olivetti to help out. Helms, 18, says he was connecting to themes in the play, "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail," which was on the AP course reading list. The play examines, among other things, the 19th century writer Henry David Thoreau's act of civil disobedience in refusing to pay taxes to the U.S. government while it waged what he viewed as an immoral war in Mexico.Thoreau was trying to point out hypocrisy by the U.S. government, Helms said, and the student in turn wanted to point out what he views as hypocrisy at Mount Abraham with regard to the constitutional separation of church and state.The school asks students to say the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and has a permanent mural displaying Apollo, an ancient Greek God, Helms said. Yet it wouldn't allow him to display the Jesus statue. "My thesis was that the government and the administration of our school is often hypocritical in what they allow and what they do not allow."The idea behind his project was basically to see "how aware the administration was of our rights," Helms said. He also wanted to see how people would react to the Jesus statue. While not Christian, Helms said he views Jesus as a person who taught love, forgiveness and compassion for the poor. "For me Jesus was a good person who taught those things, so basically it can mean different things to different people."Helms added: "I wasn't trying to disparage Jesus in any way."Olivetti, 17, said most of the students who passed the Jesus statue were not offended. "People when they saw it, some people were praying next to it, which is perfectly legal; some people were patting it on the head; most people were smiling when they saw it," he said.Steggarda is upset by what he views as muffling of free speech rights that belong to his students under the law. "I think they have a right to speak through these projects about how they connect to the literature that is in the syllabus they are asked to read. Because if they can't make any personal connections and real world connections, there really isn't much use in asking them to read what I asked them to read."
By Molly Walsh
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080523/NEWS02/805230319/1007/NEWS02
As in the days of Noah....