Posted on 10/03/2006 3:49:45 PM PDT by Brilliant
Amber Mangum was a frequent reader during lunch breaks at her Prince George's County middle school, silently soaking up the adventures of Harry Potter and other tales in the spare minutes before afternoon classes. The habit was never viewed as a problem -- not, a lawsuit alleges, until the book she was reading was the Bible.
A vice principal at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School in Laurel last month ordered Amber, then 12, to stop reading the Bible or face punishment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by Amber's mother. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, alleges that the vice principal's actions violated the girl's civil rights.
"Amber's a new Christian, and she's trying to learn all she can," said Maryann Mangum, the girl's mother. "She reads her Bible and she goes to Sunday school. . . . It really upset me when she was not allowed to read it on her own time."
John White, a spokesman for the school system, said administrators learned of the lawsuit Friday and were not prepared to comment on its claims. "We're just beginning to look into it," he said.
Mangum said her daughter was reading her Bible on Sept. 14 when Vice Principal Jeanetta Rainey approached. According to Mangum and the lawsuit, Rainey told Amber that reading the Bible violated school policy and that she would face discipline if she continued to do so.
Later that day, Amber recounted the episode to Mangum, who is her adoptive mother and also her biological grandmother. James Baker, a family friend, sent a note to the school asking that the principal identify any policy barring students from reading the Bible during their free time...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Please note the article I posted immediately before this one.
but they can be forced to take islamic names, study the quran etc..under the guise of "diversity"..
Wonder if the school would have had such a knee-jerk reaction if it had been a burka wearing 7th grader reading the Koran?
The Principal is out of line.
She shoulda been reading a Koran...
Then she would have been given an award for being Multicultural and Diverse.
She's gonna pretty much slam dunk win this one.
Slam dunk in court. Assuming she wasn't reading out loud, she has complete protection here. It will be interesting to see if the ACLU will pick up this case. Interesting and quite telling.
The problem is that if you have to go to court to vindicate your right to free practice of religion, then the right isn't much good.
Whatever happens, you can be assured that the school VP will never feel an ounce of repercussion.
Jinx - double jinx - triple jinx.
http://www.pgcps.org/~ddems/ddemsadmin.htm
The tyrants.
Even if she was reading out loud, it is still protected and the school would be wrong. Lunch time is unsupervised time and even reading the Bible out loud is protected.
She's obviously a hardened criminal.
She can read silently or outloud on her own time. The school is way out of line. The way things are going schools could use alot more bible reading students.
That about makes it a slam dunk case.
So why did she have to file a lawsuit to obtain this right?
That's the wrong way to look at it. If a court vindicates you, it affirms the right.
"The way things are going schools could use alot more bible reading students."
Especially in that county.
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