A seventh-grade social studies teacher in Presque Isle who said he was barred from teaching about non- Christian civilizations has sued his school district, claiming it violated his First Amendment right of free expression.
Gary Cole of Washburn, a teacher at Skyway Middle School, sued School Administrative District 1 in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
Cole alleged that complaints by "a small group of fundamentalist Christian individuals" led to the creation of a curriculum "which never mentions religions other than Christianity and never teaches the history of civilizations other than Christian civilizations."
"He can't even teach the history of anti-Semitism (or the) history of ancient Greece," said Cole's lawyer, A.J. Greif of Bangor.
"How can you explain the evolution of democracy in the Western world without talking about ancient Greece? He can't talk about all the influences of the Indian, Japanese or Chinese cultures."
Superintendent Gehrig Johnson said on Tuesday that he had not seen the lawsuit, but he noted that the curriculum has been "developed by teachers across the district and adopted by the SAD 1 School Committee."
"Teachers are expected to follow the curriculum," he added.
Cole's lawsuit alleges that the curriculum infringes on "his students' First Amendment rights to the free flow of information within the classroom" and that it "constitutes an illegal establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment."
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Patrick Phillips, deputy commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, declined to comment on the specifics of the case but said school boards set the curriculum for each district and Maine's Learning Results "allow districts some degree of flexibility."
They "give local districts the latitude to make choices and decisions about the content of instruction and curriculum that meet local needs," he said.
The state's academic standards stipulate that the history curriculum for grades 5 through 8 has pupils "identify the sequence of major events and people in the history of Maine, the United States, and selected world civilizations."
Fundamentalist know-nothingism isn't limited to one part of the country. For some, ignorance is bliss whether the local speciality is grits or scrod.
A School Board has imposed a curriculum which forbids teaching anything about non-Christian civilizations or religions.
