WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court Monday let stand a ruling that the Constitution prohibits an elementary school teacher from silently reading the Bible to himself during class time while his students read secular books.
The court, without comment, declined to review a decision of a divided panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a fifth- grade public school teacher in Denver violated the separation of church and state doctrine by reading the Bible during the classroom's 'silent reading period.'
The decision not to hear the case comes a week after the court outlawed official prayer at a public school graduation.
The 10th Circuit found that even having the Bible on the top of his desk in sight of the students broke the law, as did the inclusion of two Christian books -- 'The Bible in Pictures' and 'The Story of Jesus' -- in his 240-volume classroom library.
Teacher Kenneth Roberts contends the principal at Berkeley Gardens Elementary School herself violated the law by ordering him to stop exposing his students to the Bible, even passively, and to remove the two other books from his private library.
Roberts, who never read from the Bible to his students or eventold them what he was reading, claims his principal and the school district overreacted and have violated his rights.
'This (Supreme) Court has held that the establishment clause (of the First Amendment) prevents a public school teacher from reciting Bible passages aloud for purposes of devotion or indoctrination,' Roberts' attorney wrote the high court. 'The court has never held, however, that a public school teacher's silent, discreet, personal reading of the Bible during a silent reading period in the classroom violates the Constitution.'
Roberts noted that for the quiet reading time students could bring books from home, get them from the school library or select them from Roberts' personal stock for reading period, and said no student ever was encouraged to read 'The Story of Jesus' or 'The Bible in Pictures.'
In a landmark ruling in 1962, the Supreme Court prohibited states from imposing prayer in public school classrooms.NEWLN: ------NEWLN: 90-1448 Kenneth Roberts vs. Kathleen Madigan and Adams County School District No. 50
