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Public School Student Exposed to Explicit Material against Her Religious Conscience
Thank you for joining us for the First Liberty Briefing, an exclusive podcast where host Jeremy Dys—also First Liberty Senior Counsel—provides an insider’s look at the stories, cases, people and laws that have made America the world’s leader in protecting religious liberty.
Along with many of her peers, Skylar Carson, a student within the Steamboat Springs (CO) School District, was forced to read and analyze explicit lyrics in her “Music Literature” class. In doing so, her teacher had broken school policy (requiring parental consent to teach controversial material). No student should have to undergo such treatment—and neither teacher nor school district should get away with it. Learn more at FirstLiberty.org/Briefing.
Skylar Cason started her school day like any other, by attending her “Music Literature” class. She left with feelings of guilt and shame no student should be forced to endure while at school.
Steamboat Springs School District teacher Ryan Ayala decided to required students to fill-in-the-blanks in which a district-approved textbook had censored out much of the lewd and vulgar language of the infamous poem, “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg—words mostly used by pornographers.
Then, he assigned students to analyze the song, “Teenagers take off your clo” which seems to normalize sexting and ends by the singer noting his power over now nude teenagers as he holds their clothes.
None of this came with a warning—not to Skylar, nor to her parents. School policy permits teachers to instruct on controversial materials, but they are required by that policy to obtain parental permission before they do. No one at Steamboat Springs School District told Skylar’s parents and, therefore, they could not request an alternative assignment or exercise the option to opt-out in order to protect her religious conscience.
We sent a letter to the superintendent, asking that the teacher be required to apologize for the lack of forewarning and that the entire district undergo several hours of sensitivity training.
No student should feel guilt or shame—much less have their religious conscience violated by the actions of a teacher.
To learn how First Liberty is protecting religious liberty for all Americans, visit FirstLiberty.org.
First Liberty Institute is the largest organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans. Find out more here.
(This podcast is by First Liberty Briefing. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)