Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Another case where a public school is causing controversy by sending home religious fliers from outside organizations, this time in Wisconsin. This time the Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding an end to the practice:
A flier sent home this month in the backpacks of 2,000 Madison elementary students carried an unmistakably religious pitch: "Plant the Seeds of Faith in Jesus in Your Child at our Sunday school."The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on Tuesday called upon the Madison School District to ban distribution of such fliers, saying "the district should not act as a PR machine for nonschool enterprises."
The school says it allows all outside groups to send home such fliers:
However, schools Superintendent Art Rainwater defended the district's policy, which permits organizations to send a wide range of fliers home with students.The School Board, he said, intended to create "a limited public forum" when it devised the policy in the early 1990s and updated it in 2003.
"We believe our policy for distribution of materials is appropriate," Rainwater said. "And we stand by it."
Under the district's policy, parents are allowed to request that no materials be sent home with their children -- an option chosen by few parents.
The materials must be bundled for each class. They are reviewed by staff members in Rainwater's office, and are passed along to schools for distribution if the programs serve children, don't violate the law, are deemed "appropriate," and don't recruit students to attend activities outside their schools during the school day.
Every document must contain a statement saying that "this is not a school-sponsored activity and the (school district) does not approve, support, or endorse this program/activity."
The FFRF is taking the wrong approach on this. They should start sending home fliers of their own. The school has admitted that it has a limited open forum, which means they can't refuse to distribute them. But I bet few, if any, skeptical or freethinking groups have ever taken advantage of that and tested whether it's true. I suspect they will quickly find out, as happened in Virginia, that the open forum only lasts as long as no non-religious groups use the process; once they do, support for that open forum will disappear rapidly as parents complain about the "offensive" flier being sent home.
Comments
Not sure I see many people objecting to fliers of a skeptical nature in Madison. Milwaukee, maybe: Green Bay, almost certainly. But in Mad-town people may just shrug.
Posted by: Chuck C | September 21, 2007 9:51 AM
I agree that instead of banning them, FFRF should get to work printing up thier own fliers.
Include some highlights from thier 'black collar crime' listing in the freethought paper they distribute.
I'll suggest this at the convention next month. =)
Posted by: Fastlane | September 21, 2007 10:08 AM
I suspect that an American Atheist Anti-Bible Camp Flier will do the trick.
Posted by: J-Dog | September 21, 2007 10:24 AM
Yeah, if they really haven't tried their own fliers before moving, then this is a strike against the FFRF. Before taking on an issue like this, you need to make sure you have all your ducks in a row. Until the school viewpoint discriminates, or forces kids to take the fliers home, it's very comfortably in a gray area, and the FFRF has a very difficult case to make.
Posted by: Bad | September 21, 2007 10:26 AM
Ah, the magic phrase "are deemed "appropriate"". Clearly that allows them to censor any materials from skeptics or freethinkers should they choose. Obviously those aren't "appropriate".
By judging appropriateness they are approving or dissapproving of the activity endorsed by the flyer. By sorting and handing them out to students they are supporting those activities.
But yes, let's see how fast this policy changes when the administrators/parents start to get stuff they don't like.
Posted by: Dave S. | September 21, 2007 10:27 AM
I imagine "appropriateness" is judged based on the type of activity and the grade level being invited, rather than as a control over types of speech. If a church were offering a free viewing of "The Passion of the Christ, for example, the administrators probably should not send it to grammar schools, but high schools might be ok.
School administrator's number one goal in life is to avoid controversy. Most will not arbitrarily seek it out to play favorites like Christian over Muslim. Some will, but they are a distinct minority.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 21, 2007 10:39 AM
No doubt you're right kehrsam, but IMO that is still a form of approval, however weak.
Posted by: Dave S. | September 21, 2007 10:49 AM
What I'd like to know is, when did this sending home of fliers for non-school activities and organizations begin? Back when I was in elementary school (that would have been approximately when dinosaurs walked the Earth, but some of us have be old, I suppose) especially, that sort of thing just did not happen. Ever.
I just don't think it's the place of schools to be sending out information for outside groups.
Posted by: Elaine | September 21, 2007 11:27 AM
My school, which was private but non religious, sent home fliers from outside groups such as rec leagues for T-ball and Boy Scout and Girl scout fliers. These were age appropriate fliers for local activities. I see this as a good thing.
The school district in question here seems to have a reasonable policy. If an atheist group wants to have program for children or a church does, both should be allowed to send fliers if a rec-league is allowed to send fliers.
Posted by: Mike | September 21, 2007 12:00 PM
I can see why they've cut right to the chase on this one. It's exactly the same as the other flier case. If they put freethought fliers in the packet, parents will complain, and they'll get discarded. Lawsuit, FFRF wins, school stops sending fliers altogether. Then parents complain that Jesus Camp can't stuff the little buggers full of propaganda any more. So the school starts sending only the christianist fliers home. And the cycle begins again.
We already know* that what will happen.
*95+% certain. Because people are dumb.
Posted by: stogoe | September 21, 2007 12:17 PM
I agree with Chuck C, it is unlikely that many parents would object to free-thinker/humanist, etc. literature in Madison.
Personally I would like to see what the guidelines are for "appropriateness." If there aren't fairly concrete guidelines then this policy is wide open for abuse along the lines that people here in the thread have suggested regarding non-religious materials. Again, I doubt that would be the case in Madison, very liberal city with very liberal teachers, etc., but it's always possible.
Also, I remember fliers being sent home when I was in elementary school. I went to school in Shorewood, WI., suburb of Milwaukee. We had summer athletics, summer camp, etc. I don't personally remember anything biblical/religious, but then odds are good I wouldn't have noticed if it had had anything to do with a non-"fun" activity.
Posted by: dogmeatib | September 21, 2007 1:06 PM
It would be very easy to provoke the school district into rejecting a flier based on viewpoint discrimination on a religion/antireligion-in-school basis. For example, create a flier with the following text:
"Has your child been ostracized for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, or standing for the recitation of the Pledge? Has your child been made fun of by other children? Has your child's teacher required your child to stand for the Pledge? Has your school provided for opting out of religious activities from day one of the school year, in a fashion that does not create bias and/or discrimination against your child?
Meeting on Wednesday night at the community center for all parents and students who are opposed to the religious indoctrination of children by requiring or sponsoring the Pledge of Allegiance in each homeroom each day."
The school district would refuse the flier, of course.
Posted by: Karst | September 21, 2007 1:07 PM
Karst: You have evidence for this contention, of course. In my years as a sub in public schools, I never ran across any problems with kids skipping the Pledge if they wanted to, nor did anyone ever bring up the fact that I skipped it as well.
Posted by: kehrsam | September 21, 2007 2:05 PM
My son had problems with this in the first week of school this fall. The teacher made him stand. We had to discuss the issue with her. The issue was resolved with no real fuss, fortunately. But we had to make it clear that we would pursue it if need be, and that she was to keep other students from hassling him about it during class.
Many years ago, when my family moved from California to Texas, I had problems with it as well. The high school did the pledge and the Lord's Prayer. I sat and refused to participate, but made no disruptions. I was called to the Vice Principal's office. I said, in effect: Check your own school library for books on the Supreme Court decisions---not only can you not require my participation, you are also violating the law with the prayer. They left me alone, saying only that I was not to disrupt the homeroom.
Posted by: Karst | September 21, 2007 3:03 PM
So, Elaine, are you sayin' that you are a YEC?
Posted by: bybelknap, FCD | September 21, 2007 3:39 PM
I have a different take on this.
Ed's posts on these fliers are the first I ever heard of them. We certainly didn't have them in the suburban Cincinnati school that I went to in the 1960s.
But why are schools now allowing themselves to be used as substitutes for the US Postal Service? It seems to me that, if an organization, not related to a school, wants to disseminate its fliers, it can stuff them in envelopes, add postage stamps, and mail them to the various households. Or pay people to stuff them in mailboxes (technically illegal, but it's done). That would eliminate any ideological problems that teachers or school administrators have with the contents of the various fliers.
Are the schools in the midwest becoming low-rent substitutes for the US Postal Service?
I'd have a different opinion for fliers that are directly school related. But these apparently are not.
Posted by: raj | September 22, 2007 2:46 AM
Well if its not a creationist museum in Wisconsin Dells, its religious flyers being distributed by Madison public schools.
I think distributing a counter-flyer would be a very good idea, and it would be interesting to see if is passes the review process. What does "appropriate" mean to them?
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | September 22, 2007 3:55 PM
"So, Elaine, are you sayin' that you are a YEC?"
Nah. Just that I'm old...or just that I feel like the 1960s was a long, long time ago, and maybe in another universe.
Posted by: Elaine | September 26, 2007 11:57 PM