Medford board settles with family over Bible story

Burlington County Times (NJ) ^ | 11-06-2002 | Steve Doland

[Cagey]

The case over a former Medford first-grader's desire to read a favorite Bible story to his classmates was settled Monday for $35,000.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Kugler approved the settlement between the Medford Township Board of Education's insurance provider, the Burlington County Joint Insurance Fund, and Carol Hood, now of Lumberton, on behalf of her son, Zachary, who was the focus of the suit.

Yesterday, Medford Superintendent of Schools Susan Mintz said that the decision to settle was made by the district's insurance provider. She said, however, she was confident that if the litigation had gone on, the district would have prevailed.

"We would have won without question," she said.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a bipartisan and ecumenical, public-interest law firm based in Washington, D.C., represented the Hoods against the district.

Yesterday, Becket Fund President Kevin J. Hasson said that while the Hood case has been settled, the issue it represents is far from over.

"Zach is a great poster child for an issue even bigger than this particular case," he said. "We look forward to resolving that issue in other forums even as we're happy to resolve Zach's particular case."

The insurance provider's settlement decision appeared to be based on the cost of ongoing court battles rather than on the district's chances of continued victory, Mintz said.

She did say that the insurance provider covered all of the district's legal bills and that Medford taxpayers were not paying the fees.

Carol Hood sued the board in 1997 over a first-grade teacher's refusal to allow Zachary Hood to read a biblical story to his first-grade classmates at the Maurice & Everett Haines School. The teacher told Zachary that he could read the story to her in private.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously upheld a ruling that the school and the school district did not violate Zachary Hood's rights when he was not allowed to read the story from the "Beginner's Bible" to his first-grade class in 1996.

In June 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court said it would not hear an appeal of the lawsuit.

In October of last year, Carol Hood filed an amended complaint alleging that the district denied her son's freedom of expression.

That amended suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Camden, alleged that Zachary's Thanksgiving poster of Jesus was removed from a wall at the school in 1995.

The pupils were asked to draw posters depicting what they were thankful for.

[Cagey]

The $35,000 settlement comes from the taxpayers pockets. When idiocy such as this happens in schools there has to be another way to settle this. Sucking money from our pockets solves nothing. Punish the teacher and school administrators, not us.

[shiva]

Religious freedom wins this one.