Sunday, March 7, 2010
Teacher suspended for denying Wiccan altar
A teacher at the Guthrie Center High School in Iowa was put on five-day unpaid suspension for not allowing one of his students to build a Wiccan altar. Dale Halferty is the industrial arts teacher at the high school and did not allow a senior in his class to build the Wiccan altar because Halferty felt “it's offensive to worship rocks and trees…I am just trying to be moral. I don't know how we can profess to be Christians and let this go on." Halferty feels his suspension is misguided because he was merely acting as a good Christian. Halferty is upset that the school is making him act against his Christian beliefs and for allowing students to be exposed to beliefs he feels are wrong and bad for youth. When the student told Halferty that he was a practicing Wiccan and the table he was building was actually a Wiccan altar, Halferty said he could continue with the project as long as the student kept any religious materials at home. The student then began bringing a book of witchcraft with him to class. It was then that Halferty told the student he couldn’t continue building his altar. However, Halferty claims he was not discriminating against the Wiccan religion; he said he had previously told another student he could not build a cross in his class because he firmly believes in the separation of church and state. School officials placed Halferty on suspension for violating at least one school policy, and because state and federal law prohibits the discrimination of a student’s religious beliefs in school assignments. The principal of the school has said that Halferty will be allowed to return to work and will not suffer further consequences if he allows the student to build his altar. The principal equated his decision to “it's sort of like, what if I had a biology teacher who does not want to teach evolution? If a teacher doesn't do the job to which they are assigned, they are insubordinate." If Halferty refuses to return to the classroom, the superintendent will then decide what to do, and the school board will make any decisions regarding termination of employment.
This article focuses primarily on religious expression in public schools. We have been talking a lot in class about expression of religion in state-funded schools, and this article ties in nicely because it concerns religious expression of a student, as we saw with the case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. The Jehovah’s Witness students in that case were protected from having to salute the American flag due to their religious beliefs, and in this case the student’s freedom of expression rights are similarly being protected by both school policy and state and federal law. An interesting aspect to this instance is the teacher didn’t want the student to build a Wiccan altar because it conflicted with his Christian beliefs, yet he claimed to be a staunch supporter of the separation of church and state. While the teacher claims to have not allowed a student to make a cross previously, it almost seems like the teacher is questioning the legitimacy of the Wiccan religion because of how it is practiced. I think that this is an inappropriate expression of religious belief on the part of the teacher. While Mr. Halferty is entitled to his opinion, he was wrong in telling the student that he could not build the altar, and is especially in the wrong because Mr. Halferty used his own religious beliefs as a reason for not allowing the project. Teachers are in positions of authority and should not use that position as a means of preaching their own personal beliefs.
I agree with the suspension of Mr. Halferty because if the school chose to stifle the religious expression of its students, regardless of creed, our schools would quickly start to resemble the purely secular system of France. This is a problem because our Constitutional ideals of religious expression and the separation of church and state are to allow the free expression of religious beliefs, not to completely stifle all religious expression.
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