State
August 22, 2015



This print of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” was removed from the wall at Chanute’s Royster Middle School on Thursday, following a complaint from a national church-state separation group. Chanute school district - Courtesy photo {The illustration is from Wikipedia. I could not link to the newspaper article's image.}

By Dion Lefler
The Wichita Eagle
316-268-6527
dlefler@wichitaeagle.com

CHANUTE – Erika Semey went to Royster Middle School 10 years ago, every day passing a picture of Jesus that hung in the public-school hallway for decades until it was taken down this past week.

The print of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” was removed from the wall at Royster Middle School on Thursday, following a complaint from a national church-state separation group.
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“Oh man, it’s getting bad,” Semey said. “That’s what’s wrong with this world. Not enough people have Christ in their lives.”
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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national organization dedicated to the principle of separation of church and state. ... Ryan Jayne, a spokesman for the foundation’s legal department, said he thinks it’s “wonderful” that the district responded the way it did and as quickly as it did. ... “It’s nice to have people who appreciate the law and get things done (and) who follow the law even if it’s likely to be unpopular in the community,” Jayne said.

State
August 25, 2015

By Dion Lefler
The Wichita Eagle
316-268-6527
dlefler@wichitaeagle.com

Three of the state’s top experts in constitutional law say the Chanute school district made the right call when it took down a portrait of Jesus that had hung in the town’s middle school for decades, but that doesn’t mean religion has to be banished from public schools.

Law professors Bill Rich and Jeff Jackson from Washburn University and Richard Levy from the University of Kansas said the picture almost certainly violated the first part of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” ... “That (Chanute) display strikes me as a fairly clear violation of the establishment clause,” Levy said.

Acting on the advice of its attorney, the district removed the picture – a print of artist Walter Sallman’s famous “Head of Christ” – from a hallway at Royster Middle School, where it had hung for at least 50 years, superintendent Richard Proffitt said. He said a resident apparently snapped a picture of the print during a back-to-school open house and sent it to the national Freedom From Religion Foundation, which demanded the picture be taken down.

The decision wasn’t popular with residents of Chanute, an overwhelmingly Christian community in southeast Kansas with 9,200 people and 30 churches. They argue that it’s been a fixture in the school for decades and nobody ever complained before.