May 10, 2007
Dear Matthew LaClair,
I would like to congratulate you today on behalf of the American Humanist Association, my fellow Humanists, and all others who support religious liberty. Your personal courage at Kearny High School in New Jersey, backed up by your family's successful settlement of the matter with the Kearny Board of Education, is nothing short of an inspiration.
We understand that the settlement will mandate training for teachers and students about the separation of church and state. One couldn't ask for a better outcome! As we Humanists well understand, the fundamental right of freedom of religion is secured by the separation of church and state, and teachers and students need to be better educated about their rights and responsibilities. Indeed, we hope the prediction of Kenneth J. Lindenfelser, the Kearny School Board's lawyer, is correct; we hope that your case "may set the framework for how districts deal with these kinds of situations in the future." What a legacy your stand will have bequeathed to the nation!
But in any case, the publicity generated by your actions has already shed light on how proselytizing by teachers can be detrimental to students. Young people may feel they need to endorse the beliefs of such authority figures in order to get a good grade, and may not realize they have recourses if such prejudicial events occur. Students don't relinquish their first amendment rights when they enter the schoolhouse door.
Of course teachers have also learned, and will learn more, from this important development. They wield such enormous power in the lives of young people and therefore have an equal responsibility to recognize and be responsive to the diversity of all their students. Training that outlines the duties of teachers to protect and respect the rights of students, and likewise understand where their own liberties begin and end in this context, can only make them more capable role models.
So it is with gratitude that I write you today, as I express the praise of the organization I am privileged to represent. Thank you for everything you have done. And thanks as well to your family for standing so steadfastly behind you.
Yours for America's finest values,
Mel Lipman, president
American Humanist Association
