Key Cases: Donna Busch

In October 2004, Donna Busch accepted an invitation to visit her son Wesley’s kindergarten classroom at Culbertson Elementary School in Newtown Square, Penn., to read an excerpt of Wesley’s favorite book to his classmates. His teacher had invited Mrs. Busch because her son was the featured student of “Me Week,” a school program intended to feature a particular student during the week and emphasize that student’s personal characteristics, preferences and personality in classroom activities.

One activity made available to all featured students during “Me Week” was the opportunity to have the child’s parent read aloud from his or her favorite book. Wesley, a Christian, had chosen the Bible as his favorite book, and Mrs. Busch decided to read an excerpt from Psalm 118 of the Bible. However, on the day of the reading, Wesley’s teacher directed Mrs. Busch not to read the passage and the school’s principal backed that decision, informing Mrs. Busch that she could not read from the Bible in the classroom because it was against the law and that the reading would violate the “separation of church and state.”

In May 2005, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in defense of Mrs. Busch’s First Amendment rights. In their complaint, Institute attorneys charged that by singling out and forbidding Donna Busch from reading a Bible passage because of the reading’s religious content, school officials violated her First Amendment right to free speech, discriminated against her speech on the basis of its religious viewpoint and deprived her of the right to equal protection under the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Two years later, the district court granted the school defendants' motion for summary judgment, determining that even though they had engaged in viewpoint discrimination, this censorship was legal under the First Amendment. In June 2009, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's ruling, finding that "educators may appropriately restrict forms of expression in elementary school classrooms" even when they have invited speakers into the classroom. However, Circuit Judge Thomas Hardiman issued a vigorous dissent, pointing out that the reading of a passage from Psalms to Wesley's class was within the subject matter of the "All About Me" unit, and the exclusion constituted viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment because it was based solely upon its religious character.

"By excluding religious expression, and Christian expression and symbols in particular, from the classroom, school officials have exhibited the kind of hostility toward religion that should never be found in an American public school," stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. "If these acts of censorship and discrimination are allowed to continue, there will be absolutely no freedom for religious people in public schools in this country."

The Rutherford Institute has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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