Officials deny trashing Bibles

By Jon Dougherty

Officials at the

Lynn Lucas Middle School
in Willis, Texas, have denied allegations that a teacher there threw Bibles belonging to two students into a trash can, and that another instructor prohibited a student from using a book cover featuring

The Ten Commandments.

School officials were responding to questions about a

lawsuit
filed by the

Liberty Counsel
earlier this month alleging that two teenaged students attending a Saturday make-up class in March had their Bibles thrown away by one teacher who allegedly said, “We don’t allow that garbage here.”

According to the suit, teacher Sara Flottman — on seeing Angela Harbison, 15, and her sister, 13-year-old Amber Harbison carrying the two Bibles — seized the books, then led both girls to the principal’s office, where Flottman allegedly disposed of the volumes.

The suit also alleges that another Lynn Lucas teacher, identified only as “Mrs. Billingsly,” told another student, Jeremy Pasket, 13, to remove a Ten Commandments book cover from a book.

Jeremy, the suit said, was also carrying a Bible and was told by “Mrs. Billingsly” to put it away during free reading time and not to bring it back to school.

School officials have denied the charges leveled in the suit, in an email response to a WorldNetDaily inquiry last week.

“The district has investigated these allegations and determined that they are unfounded,” said a statement by Judy Thornton, a communications officer for the school district. “Students at Willis Independent School District have not been told they cannot bring Bibles to school, and Bibles have not been confiscated or thrown into the trash. Furthermore, students have not been asked to remove book covers with religious messages.”

Thornton said the district and its employees named in the suit would file a response to the charges “soon,” adding that they “have every confidence that this matter will be resolved quickly and in their favor.”

The suit accuses the school district of violating the pupils’ constitutional right to free speech and of violating the Constitution’s prohibition on excessive government entanglement with religion. School officials are also accused of violating the children’s right to free exercise of religion and denying them equal protection under the Constitution.

The mother of Angela and Amber Harbison, Deborah Bedenbender, 37, a Willis homemaker, said immediately following the alleged incident that her eldest daughter, Angela, called her, “hysterical” over what she said took place.

“My daughters called me, were hysterical, and said, ‘Mama, they took our Bibles and called them garbage and threw them in the garbage and then threatened to call Child Protective Services,'” Bedenbender said last week.

After talking to her daughter, Bendenbender said she asked to speak to Flottman.

According to the suit, an angry exchange followed, during which Flottman allegedly threatened to have the teens removed by Child Protective Services if their mother failed to come and get them within a half hour.

She did, and further claims that when she arrived at the school office she retrieved the Bibles from the trash can.

Within a week, Bendenbender withdrew the girls from the school district, she said. Three others of her nine children are still attending district schools, while Angela and Amber are being home schooled at present.

Mathew Staver, an attorney with the Liberty Counsel, filed the suit in Houston on behalf of the parents and three children May 19. Thornton said the school received notice of the suit, filed in federal court, on May 23.

“Students have a constitutional right to bring religious literature to school and read this literature during their free time,” said Staver. “Students also have the right to put a religious book cover on their own books.”

“Schools are not totalitarian regimes and students are not robots,” added a Liberty Counsel press release. “Schools are not religion-free zones.”

Staver told WorldNetDaily on Wednesday that it wasn’t unusual for the accused to deny responsibility. However, he said, it would be unusual for “a parent who has all of her children in the public school system to remove two of them and vow to home school them over a non-event. That just doesn’t happen.”

He said the Bendenbenders “have no animosity nor had they had any animosity” towards the school district prior to the alleged incident, “so there is no vendetta or anything like that” at play in the case.

Furthermore, Staver added, Bendenbender says she was also told “face to face” by Flottman that “she didn’t want any religious materials on school property.”

“That is not a non-event,” Staver said. “If the school wishes to act as though it is, fine, but you don’t react over a non-event” in the manner demonstrated by Bendenbender and her daughters, he said.

The federal lawsuit’s discovery phase is expected to begin in June.

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School sued for trashing Bibles

Jon Dougherty

Jon E. Dougherty is a Missouri-based political science major, author, writer and columnist. Follow him on Twitter. Read more of Jon Dougherty's articles here.