Loudoun County [VA] Public Schools Bans Teacher from Adding Bible Verse to Email Signature

Breitbart ^ | 4/10/23 | Jordan Dixon-Hamilton

[marshmallow]

Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) system has reportedly banned an unidentified teacher from adding a bible verse to her email signature.

The teacher was barred from putting John 3:16 in her email signature, one of the most widely known bible verses that reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

The teacher is receiving help from the law firm Liberty Counsel, which noted that LCPS’s policy allows teachers to personalize their signature blocks with “personally-selected pronouns, quotations, pictures or phrases that are intended to express the teachers’ personal views on a variety of subjects, and that are attributable to the teachers, and not necessarily to LCPS.”

After LCPS banned the teacher from including the Bible verse in her signature block, Richard L. Mast and Hugh C. Phillips of Liberty Counsel sent a letter to LCPS Acting Superintendent Daniel Smith on March 23 demanding the teacher be allowed “to restore the Bible verse to her email signature block.”

“The directive from LCPS to [the teacher] to remove an expression of her personal faith from her email signature block, based solely on its perceived religious nature, constitutes religious discrimination,” Mast and Phillips wrote.

[rdl6989]

First Amendment rights? I mean if this same person was a nonbinary tranny who identified as being from some other planet etc.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I wouldn’t be surprised that the district REQUIRES everybody to put their pronouns in their signature blocks.

[gibsonguy]

Isn’t this the district that had porn in the school library?

[ConservativeInPA]

Pronouns but not Jesus. Sickening.

[Ciaphas Cain]

Isn’t this the district that had porn in the school library?

Yes. Among too many others it seems.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Sue for monetary settlement. Nothing perks their ears up like finding out they've been slapped with a million dollar lawsuit.

[rockrr]

On my last job we used email extensively. In the beginning the company had little in the way of restrictions on formatting or customization of our emails. Some people (mostly the gals) got really elaborate with background wallpaper, themes, fonts, colors, and icons.

All I ever did was add a tagline:

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners” – Charlton Heston

Over the years I received a ton of compliments, including from people who had never heard the saying before. It was a regular part of my emails for 10-12 years until someone complained. The weasel who was my supervisor immediately contacted me and demanded that I remove it.

I shrugged, called him an a-hole under my breath, and complied. Very soon thereafter he announced to the "team" that we were all henceforth required to reformat our email template to one of his choosing. The rebel in me couldn't resist and I made one slight change. I re-added my original tagline and made the font white. It looks like this:

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners” – Charlton Heston

If you highlight my text (CTRL-A or hold down the left mouse button while dragging the cursor across my message)) you'll see my hidden message.

I left it that way for the last two years before I retired, and pointed it out to him in the last two weeks before going out.

[Professional Engineer]

On a school computer? Their hardware, their rules.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

LOL, great story...and very clever doing it in white font! Well done. How did he react when you told him it had still been there for two years?

[rockrr]

Thanks. Seeing as how he had already removed me from my job and relegated me to an entry-level position for daring to think for myself, and seeing as how I had invited him to FO when I announced my intention to retire instead, I think he was just happy to see me go.

He didn’t say anything to me for the rest of my time there.

[Reno89519]

Allow any or none, but picking and choosing beyond those promoting violence would be wrong.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It sounds like your end-of-career time was not unlike mine. It was not the best time in my career.

[healy61]

Sue for enough to be able to retire comfortably, what with the hostile work environment, mental abuse and all.

[daniel1212]

The objection would be to a gov. employee promoting a religion, yet since the IRS now classifies a “Resolutely Non-theistic” group (satanic temple) as a religion, then it blurs the distinction btwn promoting faith-based theistic ideology versus faith-based ideology such as that biology does not define gender, as well as atheistic origins “science.” .