James Reed earned FFRF’s Percy Bysshe Shelley Student Activist Award of $1,000 for writing this column, which first appeared in the Daily Orange (the Syracuse University student newspaper) on Oct. 7. Reprinted with permission.
By James Reed
Under President Trump’s administration, we’ve seen Christianity gradually infiltrate the country’s academic curricula in exceedingly blatant ways. Fifteen states have proposed legislation requiring schools to display the Ten Commandments, with Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana passing laws to require it.
These laws are just a way for Christian-based nationalism to get its foot in the door of public education; in Oklahoma, State Superintendent Ryan Walters mandated that each classroom “contain a copy of the bible” and every teacher “teach from it.”
Walters claims he wants to teach the bible’s “historical impact” and hopes for children to learn “the full and true context of our nation’s founding and of the principles that made and continue to make America great and exceptional.”
Although the claimed purpose is to strengthen “historical accuracy,” it’s apparent that the true intention of these mandates is to push the Christian version of history on impressionable kids and standardize religious values.
