Teacher Ordered to Remove 'God Bless America' Poster

A San Diego math teacher was forced to remove two posters from his classroom walls because they included the phrases "In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God" and "God Bless America."

A federal judge said the Poway Unified School District was wrong to order the removal of the posters, and now the school district is appealing the judge's decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Brad Johnson, who has been an educator for 32 years, told Baptist Press he began hanging motivational posters in his classroom early in his career.

As he stood with his students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and as he thought about the Declaration of Independence and other staples of American history, he decided to hang a red, white and blue poster reflecting the sentiments of the nation. The poster hung in his classroom for 25 years without anyone complaining.

About 20 years ago, Johnson added another poster that says "All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their Creator."

"I have a lot of nature pictures in my classroom from national parks and other nationally recognized scenes, so I put that poster up around all my nature pictures to reflect that as a nation we believe that we're not here as an accident, that we've been created and we've been endowed by a Creator with our rights," Johnson, a math teacher at Westview High School, said.

Johnson doesn't talk about the posters in class, and he said students have commented that his classroom is a relaxing, refreshing and inspirational place.

But in the fall of 2006, another math teacher asked the principal why the posters were permitted. The principal sought guidance from district administrators, and the assistant superintendent, Bill Chiment, was assigned to investigate.

Chiment reasoned, according to the court ruling, that none of the individual phrases on the posters would be a problem, but the combined influence "over-emphasized" God. He also said the phrases were taken out of their original contexts, and as a solution he proposed that Johnson place a full copy of the Declaration of Independence and pictures of U.S. coins on the wall.

Johnson asserted his right to hang the posters in his classroom, and the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Michigan, filed a federal lawsuit on his behalf in 2007.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez ruled in February that Johnson's First Amendment rights were violated and that he should be allowed to hang the posters. Benitez said the posters clearly constitute free speech, and public school teachers have First Amendment rights.