Celebrating Holidays at School: Legal Guidance for Administrators
Extensive planning goes into public schools’ holiday preparations this time of
year—from which decorations should adorn classrooms to what music selections
will make it into the holiday concert. But despite the seemingly lighthearted
nature of these tasks, there’s one serious factor to consider that, if
overlooked, could cause even the most highly orchestrated holiday plans at
public schools to unravel or, worse, result in a lawsuit.
Francisco Negrón, the chief legal officer for the National School Boards
Association, sums up the legal considerations to keep in mind when preparing
for school-based holiday celebrations: “It’s clear that the [public] school
can’t endorse particular religious views.”
Cornell University education professor Jill Heinrich points out that, over the
past several decades, schools have “repeatedly violated” the Constitution’s
Establishment Clause, which mandates separation of church and state. Those
violations, Heinrich suggests, occur primarily when schools misunderstand what
separation of church and state means in practice. The result of these
violations, said Heinrich, is “a steady stream of litigation over the past 70
years.”
Lawsuits filed over holiday-related activities, performances
One recent lawsuit—filed in December 2021 by a parent in California’s Carmel
River School—sought a temporary restraining order after school administrators
and the parent-teacher organization denied her request to display a six-foot
inflatable menorah beside a Christmas tree during a planned tree lighting
ceremony on the school grounds.
The parent, who is a lawyer, sued the Carmel Unified school district; its
superintendent, Ted Knight; and the elementary school’s principal, Jay Marden,
according to a news report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Days later, though, the parent voluntarily withdrew the suit after a judge
determined that she had not met the legal standard required for a restraining
order. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman said that in
contemporary times, Christmas trees “typify the secular celebration of
Christmas” while menorahs are considered religious expressions.
Another lawsuit claiming violation of the Establishment Cause was filed in
October 2015 by the Freedom From Religion Foundation on behalf of a student
and his father over a winter holiday performance in 2014 at Concord High
School in Elkhart, Ind., that included an estimated 20-minute portrayal of the
birth and adoration of Jesus Christ in a nativity scene by students and
scripture reading.
After the complaint, the school revised the winter performance, omitting the
scripture reading and using mannequins instead of student-actors for the
nativity scene, and adding songs from non-Christian religions. But the
Foundation filed an amended complaint, claiming that the performance was still
unconstitutional and requesting a permanent injunction of the performance. The
case reached the U.S. Court of Appeals and, in March 2018, federal judges
denied the request for the permanent injunction on the grounds that the
nativity scene no longer represented a centerpiece of the performance.
While the outcomes in both lawsuits ultimately favored the school and/or
district, the time and resources they likely required of K-12 administrators
could have been avoided altogether.
Negrón suggests that educators and school officials take the time to ask some
basic questions about planned school-based holiday activities—long before
actors are chosen for performances and invitations for holiday celebrations
are distributed.
The overarching legal question to ask, said Negrón, is this: Does the activity
meet constitutional muster? Answering this question, he explains, requires
considering more than just the form of the activity, but also its function.
Shomari Jones, director of equity and strategic engagement for the Bellevue,
Wash., school district, explains why he thinks schools should teach about all
religious beliefs.
‘Tis the season for educators’ to warily walk on eggnog shells, asking
themselves: How much should we acknowledge Christmas? What about other
holidays that happen this time of year, like Hannukah and Kwanzaa?
Navigating cultural differences, trying to celebrate while also trying to be
inclusive, can color everything from holiday décor, to what breaks are called
on the school calendar, to what music the high school choir chooses for its
winter concert.
But are those the right conversations for educators to have? Is it safer for
educators—who have plenty of other things to worry about—to just avoid all
this messy religious stuff? Or is teaching about religious differences and
celebrations part of schools’ broader responsibility to educate children about
the world they live in? And if so, why just in December, when holidays happen
all year long?
Education Week put those and other questions to Shomari Jones, the director of
equity and strategic engagement for the Bellevue, Wash., school district, and
a 2019 Education Week Leader To Learn From.
Is it best to handle these important questions by just deciding, “we’re just
not going to talk about this in school?” Can religion be a part of
multiculturalism without making everyone uncomfortable?
Yeah. I don’t want you to seek to convert me to a religion or belief that is
not mine. But I absolutely want to celebrate you for how you identify, how you
show up, and for the things that are important to you.
When I was a young person, because we were in a dominantly Christian society,
we celebrated Christmas in school. We had trees in school and teachers
decorated [classrooms] . Well, that has evolved immensely since I was a young
person. And now we just don’t do that, and won’t.
I have been in school districts that [still] do that. And they happen to be in
communities that have smaller demographic mixes, smaller amounts of racial and
cultural diversity. And maybe that’s OK for them. I guarantee it is not OK for
all the people who they’re going to interface with. But because they don’t get
a lot of [negative] feedback, likely, they’re going to continue.
And I’m not mad at that. But I would like to think that, if you’re going to
celebrate religion, that you celebrate them all. Let’s talk about Yom Kippur
[the Jewish day of atonement], let’s celebrate when Muslims are having their
religious holidays and particularly when they’re going through Ramadan [a holy
month of fasting and prayer].
My community was incredibly homogenous. I grew up in a Black-only community.
We may have had one white kid. And there were very similar, very shared
beliefs in the community. [Other students in my school] celebrated Christmas
just the same way that I celebrated Christmas at home. I didn’t learn a single
thing about a different culture.
I didn’t learn the nuances of different religious communities until probably
middle school when I moved out of Gary to a more diverse community in Chicago.
That’s where I met Jewish students. There were white Catholic students. Not
that we talked about these things, and it wasn’t a part of our curriculum.
Now, [religious diversity] is incredibly hard to avoid. The racial mix [in
Bellevue] is extraordinary. [Students’ families come] from a multitude of
Asian countries, a multitude of African countries, some Christians, some
Muslim. Lots of folks are [from India] so lots of celebration of religion and
culture within the Indian community.
Do you think that kids in school districts where everybody is from the same
background can still benefit from learning about other cultures?
As director of equity in education, I’ll often get folks who will tell me
“Well, I don’t serve any Black kids or you know, I don’t interface a lot with
those cultures. So, I should be good on this racial equity front.” I’m like,
“nah, that’s not how that works.”
It’s important for us to ensure that everyone has an understanding of who the
contributors to our society are, what their makeup is. I just think it is so
vital that we prepare our kids for the world that they’re entering.
I think that an education around the differences that people bring to the
table would be ideal. I think about kindergarten all the time and story time
and what stories are we telling? And which stories are we reading? And who
does it represent and how does it represent the people in the classroom in
front of you? Imagine being a student who has this specific belief, seeing
myself reflected in a book or story and celebrated by others, feeling like I
belong in this place and in this space. That just feels good.
It needs to be an acknowledgement and somewhere interwoven into curriculum
that informs young people in particular who they are working with. They can
make conscious decisions on how to celebrate one another. It doesn’t need to
be our responsibility to celebrate. It needs to be our responsibility as an
education institution to provide education and provide information.
Outside the K-12 experience, there are things that happen on college campuses
all the time that are brilliant and awesome. And it’s an opt in, the opt-in
model is wonderful. It’s like ‘let’s host an opportunity for folks to expose
or educate or celebrate who they are.’ And if you’d like to be a part of that,
come on, come through.
The most multi-cultural school I’ve ever worked in did a culture night every
year. And everyone brought everything, and they brought their whole selves.
Massive amounts of food for you to explore from different cultures, varying
types of dances being performed. It just felt so good. I would love to find a
way to like, slide religion in there. I don’t know how I would do that,
without it feeling promotional, right?
I do think that throughout the year, knowing when the opportunities are
arising, where there are holidays or celebrations emerging that are
representative of a particular religion, I do think it’s our responsibility to
say, “maybe not you, but others in our community are celebrating this and I’d
like to tell you a little bit more about it. You know, I’ll read a book, or
we’ll have a class discussion or a visitor or guest who can answer some
questions. Or we might watch a video.” Something that helps to really provide
a removal of this veil that a lot of us have in our ignorance to other
people’s lives, and perspectives and religions and experiences.
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