by Matt Barr

Want to win a geeky Constitutional bet?

Bet someone who seems (or is) fond of sayng the Constitution doesn't mention God that it does.

The Week in Review section of yesterday's NYT included a story about a lawsuit filed by fifth grade teacher Steven J. Williams in Cupertino, California. His American history handouts (well, presumably, all of them) have been subject to pre-screening by the principal since last May, amid worries he "would try to proselytize his Christian faith to the students in his classroom," according to the federal lawsuit.

Barred from his classroom, Mr. Williams said, were handouts with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, the "Right of the Colonists" by Samuel Adams, and the 1682 "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania" by William Penn. Also rejected were excerpts from George Washington's prayer journal and a handout titled, "Fact Sheet: Currency & Coins History of 'In God We Trust.' "

Ms. Vidmar [the Principal] nixed the handouts "because of their religious content," the lawsuit states. In it, Mr. Williams accuses the school district of excluding "the viewpoint that this nation has a Christian history" and of demonstrating "impermissible hostility towards religion." Mr. Williams says his materials had been singled out because of his Christianity.

School officials say none of the historical documents, or their underlying principles, have been banned from classrooms, only that Mr. Williams's use of them has been restricted. "No teacher has been stopped from passing out the Declaration of Independence," said Andy Mortensen, an assistant superintendent.

Given the venue, I can understand school administrators wanting to err on the side of not getting sued by some Michael Nednow. But honestly. Are we affirmatively trying to teach that no one who founded the country believed in God and was guided by Christian principles? No one?

Back when the Pledge case was decided by the Ninth Circuit I noted on a message board somewhere the absurdity of holding something unconstitutional that was optional because if a child opted out they might feel conspicuous. (I mentioned this in a longer piece on the Ten Commandments monument in Alabama.) I asked: What if a teacher required students to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address in front of the class? No option?

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Predictably, the answer was that my hypothetical was rote recital and not an affirmative "pledge" to believe and act a certain way (neither, of course, is the Pledge of Allegiance, to the extent a student may opt out of saying it, which they may), and also, this was a historical document, a speech actually delivered by a President. I was mostly willing to buy the latter, but it seems as though they won't in Cupertino.

Incidentally, in high school for a couple years there was a girl in my homeroom who was a Jehova's Witness and who would not stand for the Pledge. We did indeed make fun of her. We made fun of a lot of people for a lot of things in high school, didn't you? Just an aside.

Oh, to win your bet, direct your counterpart to the paragraph of the Constitution immediately following Article VII.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.

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