The Freedom From Religion Foundation is pleased that Clark County Public Schools staff members in Winchester, Ky., will cease violating the right of their students to be free from religious coercion.

A concerned district parent informed FFRF that their child returned home from Baker Intermediate School with a Gideon bible on May 22 of this year. Gideons International is “an evangelical association that equips and mobilizes Christian business and professional men, along with their wives, to share God’s word.” Reportedly, the school’s assistant principal entered the student’s classroom to distribute bibles on the last day of school. 

“To respect students’ and parents’ First Amendment rights, the district must ensure its staff members cease distributing religious literature to students,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle J. Steinberg wrote to the district. “It is inappropriate and unconstitutional for the district to allow its staff members to distribute religious materials to students. The district cannot allow its schools to be used as recruiting grounds for religious missions.” 

Bible distribution in public schools needlessly marginalizes all students and families who do not practice Christianity, FFRF pointed out. Data show that 37 percent of the U.S. population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent of Americans who are nonreligious. Additionally, at least a third of Generation Z members (those born after 1996) have no religion, with a recent survey revealing almost half of them qualify as religiously unaffiliated “Nones.”

Thankfully, FFRF’s work made an impact on the district.

Rebecca G. McCoy, an attorney for the district, confirmed that the district has understood its responsibility to students’ rights. “The district is committed to ensuring that school faculty will not be distributing bibles and other religious literature to students,” she recently responded in a letter.

FFRF is always glad to see students’ right of conscience come out on top. 

“Religious instruction should be the province of parents, not our public schools, and young and impressionable students have a right to be free from religious coercion,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Students do not need their last day of school to be commandeered by their assistant principal’s religious agenda.” 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 42,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including hundreds of members and a chapter in Kentucky. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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