SAN DIEGO, March 22 (UPI) -- A California teacher has won a legal battle over displaying banners referring to God in his public school classroom but school officials say they will appeal.
Brad Johnson -- a teacher at Westview High School in Rancho Penasquitos, Calif., who has taught math for 33 years -- was told in 2007 to take down posters he had been putting up in his classrooms since 1990. Some of the posters read: "In God We Trust"; "God Bless America"; and "All Men Are Created Equal They Are Endowed By Their CREATOR," The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Monday.
Johnson sued the school district to keep the posters up and won. The posters went back up on the wall March 1, but the school district has appealed.
"They're just up there (on the wall). I don't talk about them," he said. "These are patriotic sayings that are inspiring to me."
The school district says the prominence of Johnson's banners without any historical context effectively promotes a Judeo-Christian viewpoint, and are inappropriate in a public classroom, the Union-Tribune reported.
Johnson says he doesn't talk about religion in class but he feels "blessed and fortunate that he took a stand" on the banners.
"I'm promoting and celebrating these historic mottos of a nation founded by religious refugees," he said.
