Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting
injustice, one victory at a time."
RS Advocacy Succeeds Again:
Prayer "Song"Removed from Public School
Choral Program
Rob
Sherman Advocacy has succeeded, again, in resolving yet another atheist civil
rights dispute. As usual, RS Advocacy was able to resolve the dispute
without going to court.
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As reported in the past three editions of Liberal News &
Commentary, I had
challenged the inclusion of Hashiveinu,
sung in Hebrew, in my daughter's Fifth Grade public school choral program.
The English translation of the lyrics, which is Chapter 5, Verse 21, of the Book
of Lamentations, boils down to this: "Convert all atheists to
believe in You, Jehovah. Turn the atheists into Born Again
believers." School District 21
in suburban Chicago has now reversed its decision and has removed this
proselytizing, anti-atheist prayer "song" from its Fall Choral
Program.
As an atheist parent, I was outraged that the government would direct my atheist
daughter to sing those words, regardless of the language. I also was not
going to tolerate the government directing my daughter's classmates to sing
those words in my daughter's presence, particularly since most of her classmates
know that my daughter is an atheist who comes from a very high-profile-atheist
family.
In fact, my daughter told me that her classmates were also extremely
uncomfortable with the situation. "Why are they making us do this to
Dawn?," asked one chorus member. "Why is the school forcing us
to ridicule Dawn?," asked another.
The federal courts have long maintained that it is not Kosher for public schools
to lead students in reciting prayers or in reading bible verses. Taking a
bible verse that is a proselytizing prayer, setting it to music and calling it a
folk song does not nullify that legal standard.
During the past two weeks, I used standard Rob Sherman Advocacy techniques to
resolve the matter favorably without litigation. I met several times with
the school district superintendent, the school principal and other school
administrators to articulate my concerns. I explained how their positive
intention of providing cultural diversity through this song was having an
unintended negative effect, that being the mocking, insulting and denigrating of
a segment of the community of which I was a prominent part.
I told them that they could take the song out of the Fall Choral Program without a lawsuit, or they could
take the song out of the program with a lawsuit, but either way, that song was coming out of
the Fall Choral Program.
After last night's school board meeting, the members of the District 21 School
Board met privately in Executive Session, which the Illinois
Open Meetings Act of the Illinois Complied Statutes (ILCS), at 5 ILCS 120/2(c)(11),
properly allows them to do to discuss potential litigation. During that
meeting, they wisely chose to remove the song from the program.
This morning, the Superintendent notified me that the song is removed from the
program and that new procedures are being put in place to try to insure that
this type of situation never happens again within our school district. As
a part of that set of new procedures, I suggested that they make sure they know
exactly what the words mean, any time they use a foreign language song in a
district choral program.
This matter is not completely concluded, however. The Superintendent
indicated to me that the Hashiveinu prayer is on the approved list of
"songs" of one or more statewide public school music organizations in
Illinois. That's going to change, too, and Rob Sherman Advocacy is going
to make that change happen, too.
Rob Sherman
P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by
the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com