By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation
UPDATE: This piece has been updated to include a statement from Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill.
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Pennsylvania state lawmakers are in the process of repealing a law that bans teachers from wearing religious emblems in the classroom.
The current bill aims to repeal Section 1112 of the Public School Code of 1949 stating that no teacher is allowed to wear a “dress, mark, emblem or insignia” that would indicate a specific religion when teaching students, and any teacher who is found to have violated the law is subjected to suspension for an entire year. State senators in the Senate Education Committee (SEC) voted Tuesday to move the “Protecting the First Amendment Right to Freedom of Religious Expression” bill forward to the state Senate to be voted on in the General Assembly, according to The Morning Call.
The new bill, proposed by Republican Sen. Kristin Phillips-Hill and Democratic Sen. Judith L. Schwank, stalled twice in years past, but this time is supported by the Pennsylvania State Education Association which was originally in favor of the current ban, according to The Morning Call. The bipartisan bill details a 2003 case, Nichol v. Arin Intermediate Unit 28, where a teacher was suspended because she wore a cross necklace to school but was eventually reinstated after the United States District Court W.D. Pennsylvania ruled Arin Intermediate Unit 28’s policy violated the Constitution.
Phillips-Hill told the Daily Caller News Foundation a “cross necklace” should not prevent a teacher from expressing their rights.
“Our First Amendment rights do not end simply because a teacher walks into a classroom,” Phillips-Hill noted. “The Pennsylvania Senate Education committee took an important step to protect our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression this week and I remain hopeful that the Senate can approve this measure in the coming weeks.”
The bipartisan bill details a 2003 case, Nichol v. Arin Intermediate Unit 28, where the United States District Court W.D. Pennsylvania ruled that a policy by Arin Intermediate Unit 28 violated the Constitution.
In the 2019-2020 session, the bill failed to make it out of the SEC and in the 2020-2021 session, the bill made it through the Senate and the House Education Committee but did not pass the General Assembly. Phillips-Hill pointed out that a teacher has the same rights to religious expression given to the rest of Americans.
The Pennsylvania Senate Education committee took an important step to protect our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression this week and I remain hopeful that the Senate can approve this measure in the coming weeks,” Phillips-Hill said. “More importantly, this long overdue legislation needs to reach the governor’s desk in order to make Pennsylvania the 50th state to eradicate this archaic law once and for all.
Schwank did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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To right-thinking Americans attempting to make sense of a nation seemingly gone mad, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the irrational, deranged – and often demonic – leftwing political and cultural movements currently capturing the minds of millions of Americans are nothing short of full-fledged cults.
Although the high priesthood of all these leftwing religious cults – i.e., university professors, academics and other Marxist ideologues and activists – may be true believers, the people actually wielding REAL POWER do not believe any of it. To them, these leftwing cults conveniently serve to disguise and distract “the rabble” from what the leader class is REALLY up to, which is the pursuit of ever more power, wealth and glory for themselves, and a total transformation of America and the world.
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