School sues over Bible plan

BOISE – A public charter school sued Idaho officials in federal court Tuesday, saying the state illegally barred use of the Bible as an instructional text.

The Alliance Defense Fund – a Christian legal group based in Scottsdale, Ariz. – filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boise on behalf of Nampa Classical Academy.

“I’ve never seen such a broad-reaching ban on using the Bible at all as an educational resource in public schools,” said David Cortman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

Administrators at Nampa Classical Academy, which is slated to become the third-largest public charter school in Idaho when it opens this fall with more than 550 students, said in June they planned to use the Bible as a primary source of teaching material, but not to teach religion.

The academy said the Bible would likely be introduced in the ninth grade, when students delve into the history of Western civilization, and taught for its literary and historic qualities and as part of a secular education program.

The plan prompted the Idaho Public Charter School Commission to review use of religious texts in the classroom.

Commissioners decided last month the school could not use the Bible and said the state constitution “expressly” limits use of religious texts.

This order was issued “despite the fact that public schools across the state utilize the Bible and other religious texts routinely in their curriculum,” the lawsuit says.

“Out of the hundreds of public schools throughout the state of Idaho, defendants have thus far singled out only the academy for this censorship.”

School districts in Idaho are not prohibited from using the Bible as part of literature or history courses if it does not violate a separation of church and state, according to the state Department of Education.

The lawsuit names the state Public Charter School, the state Board of Education, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, state Attorney General Lawrence Wasden and Gov. Butch Otter as defendants who “have decided that the Bible is now a banned book in every public school throughout the state of Idaho,” the lawsuit says.

The Alliance Defense Fund says the school has a statutory right to choose its own curriculum.

The U.S. Supreme Court banned ceremonial school Bible readings in 1963, but said “the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities” so long as material is “presented objectively as part of a secular program of education.”

Public schools across the country have traditionally avoided Bible courses and the potential controversy, but hundreds do offer voluntary classes to students.