Here’s hoping you get through this day with no scary clowns to deal with, and just some good natured fun in your school. Halloween marks the beginning of the “holiday season,” two months that seem to move a lot faster than the other ten. Thanksgiving is on the horizon and Christmas catalogs are already clogging the mailbox.
So we thought you might want to hear about the litigation going on over the annual CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR presented each year by Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana. This program is a holiday tradition going back to the 1970s when the high school marching band attended the Radio City Christmas Spectacular in New York.
I’m sure that the Radio City program is impressive, but those Yankees got nothin’ on these Hoosiers. Concord High produces a program that involves two string orchestras, a symphony orchestra, a concert band, two jazz bands, five choirs, and small chamber groups. That’s just the music. The program also includes dance teams and drama department players. Throw in the stage technicians and crew, and you have 600 of the high school’s 1700 students involved in this 90-minute production. I expect there is a partridge in a pear tree as well.
Until the litigious Doe family got involved, the program was exclusively about Christmas. Oh, there were secular songs, like Jingle Bells and White Christmas, but there was no mention of other faiths and their winter celebrations. Moreover, the program concluded with “The Story of Christmas” which included readings taken directly from the Gospels. This was accompanied by a live nativity scene, with students in costumes portraying Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds and the three wise men.
The Doe family, supported by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, filed suit, seeking to force changes in the program for 2014. In response, the school immediately offered to make some changes. They dropped the Gospel readings, and added songs pertaining to Chanukah and Kwanzaa. These holidays, along with Christmas, would be introduced in the program with a short reading about the cultural significance of each holiday. But the nativity scene was still in the program. And the “Story of Christmas” portion was to last 20 minutes, compared to three or four minutes honoring the other traditions.
The federal district court in Indiana ruled that this did not go far enough. The court held that the program, as proposed by the school, would still amount to a governmental endorsement of religion, in violation of the First Amendment.
So the school made additional changes for the 2015 program. The Doe Family continued to object, but the court found the 2015 program to be significantly different from previous Christmas Spectaculars. Those differences were enough for the program to pass muster. Key Quote:
The portrayal of the nativity scene in the 2015 show was very different. As just noted, the nativity scene was on stage for less than two minutes. It did not span multiple performances, either, as it was only on stage for the conclusion of the show. The scene was also less elaborate than in previous years. Previous shows included almost twenty student actors as part of the living nativity scene. Mary and Joseph stood inside the stable behind a manger, with three students on each side dressed in white robes, depicting angels. Students dressed as the three wise men would then walk onto the stage and take their place in front of the nativity scene. In addition, multiple students were spread to the sides dressed as shepherds. The nativity scene that was actually presented in 2015, though, included only Mary, Joseph, and three wise men, each situated inside the stable set and depicted by mannequins instead of students.
When presented in that limited manner, the nativity scene did not stand out from any other portion of the show, during which almost every performance was accompanied by some sort of visual complement in order to make the show visually as well as musically pleasing and engaging.
We expect this is not the last we will hear about this case. Furthermore, it’s a reminder of the fine line public schools have to walk when celebrating holidays that have religious origins. Public schools are not expected to ignore the role of religion, or the religious roots of some of our holidays. But neither are they to endorse the majority view.
The case is Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Concord Community Schools, decided by the federal district court for the Northern Division of Indiana on September 14, 2016. We found it at 2016 WL 4798964.
DAWG BONE: TALK TO YOUR MUSIC AND DRAMA PEOPLE ABOUT THIS.
File this one under: RELIGION