An Atheist Family Sues an Oklahoma Town for Violating Separation of Church and State
The Smalkowski family, who moved into Oklahoma three years ago, are atheists. This lawsuit revolves around their eldest daughter, Nicole Smalkowski.
Nicole, who is an athlete, was looking forward to being an active figure in sports at her local high school. Things were going well, until basketball season began. Nicole mentioned that after the first basketball game, the girls gathered to recite the Lord's Prayer. Also adding that even the opposite team joined, and the school officials bowed their heads.
"I didn't think they had religion in sports. But when it came to basketball they would pray before and after practices. They would pray during games. And you know, praying was a tradition for them and that is what they said," Nicole said. "You could see that all of the teachers that work at the school, the administration had their heads bowed and were saying the Lord's Prayer with the kids. Coach has his head bowed. It's a thing that everyone does."
This was, needless to say, an uncomfortable situation for Nicole, who has been an atheist her entire life. In her household, religion was never mentioned as she grew up.
Nicole Smalkowski chose to not participate, as she felt it was disrespectful to her and them as well. Once she revealed to her peers that she was an atheist, the children began to treat her differently. She received labels such as devil worshiper, and would have to enure laughing and stares as she walked down the halls. Nicole also said that the teachers began to harass her as well, one teacher said to her face, ""This is a Christian country, and if you don't like it, get out."
Yet, according to Diane Summerford, a substitute teacher whom is married to one of the town's religious leaders, insists that there was no discrimination against Nicole.
School administrators claimed that Nicole was bad for team morale, and that she stole another student's sneakers, thus they kicked her off the team. Nicole denies the charges. A year later, Nicole was allowed back on the team, this time when the prayers began, she stayed outside of the circle. When the Pledge of Allegiance was said by all, Nicole chose to follow along, except omitting the "under God."�
The next day, Nicole was suspended. The reason behind this was apparently she threatened to kill a team member. Nicole denies this as well.
Frightened by the behavior that Nicole was receiving from peers and teachers, Nicole's parents decided to home-school all three of their children.
Nicole's father, along with the help of American Atheist International, filed a civil lawsuit against the town and school, claiming they violated separation of church and state.
John Stossel, Sylvia Johnson, and Lynn Redmond, "The Black Sheep of Hardesty." Published May 11th, 2007 on ABCnews.com.
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18 Comments
Post a Commentgood job! hugz cj
Thank-You for this article, it was very interesting to read
I say we just get rid of every single religion and only have religious services in our homes. No talk of religion FROM ANYONE and I think we'll do okay...that will fix the issue pretty quickly, than I can stop hearing and reading about how Christians make everyone pray and what a terrible world it is because this country was founded on Christianity and blah blah blah. Seriously folks, let people believe what they will, let them pray when they want to pray, how they want to pray, where they want to pray. I don't think there is anything wrong with having a prayer hour in school. I don't think it should be a requirement but if someone wants to pray during that hour or 15 minutes, they should be allowed to, if they don't feel like it and they happen to not believe that in fact there IS a God and he reigns and will forever, fine...let them sit in their seat and do something else. It's a real simple suggestion.
Thank you Jamie K Wilson,
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Thank you Jamie K Wilson,
Couldn't have said it better myself.
The poor children! I can absolutely relate to this family's suffering. I grew up in an atheist family in a small town. They kept their non-belief on the down-low but when it came to being required to say grace before eating lunch or facing punishment in a public school my parents quietly objected. Once it was out my siblings and I faced discrimination and a number of beatings. It's ridiculous to require children to pretend to be religious to go to public school.
As born and raised Oklahoman currently living in yet another small town much like hardesty I can tell you with out reservation (no pun intended) that the events described that allegedly occured at the school and by its students and faculty are 200% accurate. I have raised 2 children in this environment and as a parent that practices and teaches freedom FROM organized religion only after graduating from a local university and seminary, my children were and are persecuted almost daily simply because they choose not to answer the BURNING question "whos side are you on, jesus ot the devils?" and instead focus on the actual reason they are in school. Any one see the movie "The Stepford wives"? or possibly more poiniently "Village of the Damned"? If "Why don't I move?" just popped into your mind while reading this, repeat the following to yourself "it's better to be thought a fool, than to open ones mouth and remove all doubt"
The crux of the matter is not about the girls praying. It's about the way the representatives of the school treated Nicole. I'm sure she will win this suit if she can prove the facts. www.AtheistActivist.org
Andre - every bit of the POV that is publicly available is the atheistic family's. We don't know the whole story of what happened in the school because they are not talking to the press (except for the one substitute teacher, who is arguably not directly involved). You really can't make a good judgment on what's going on unless you have both sides. The truth is almost always in the middle.
Sharon -- exactly. I'm suggesting that when in Rome etc. You don't have to pray to stand silently and respectfully; if I were around Muslims or Jews or Christians or Buddhists who were engaged in prayer, I'd certainly respect that enough to at least stand silent, even with the group if I happened to be in their group at the time -- and I wouldn't feel left out. Their beliefs aren't mine. That's all. Not a big deal unless you make it one.