Angry parents and students forced a California high school to back down and remove a controversial photograph — a crucifix described as an example of "anti-Christian bigotry" — from one of its courses in a prestigious academic program, The Epoch Times reported on Wednesday.
Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, included a photograph taken by Andres Serrano in 1987 in a "Theory of Knowledge" course that is required for the school's International Baccalaureate Diploma program, which is geared for upper-level students.
The photo, which shows a plastic crucifix submerged in a small glass tank of what was purported to be the artist's own urine, has been controversially displayed in art galleries.
Paul Jonna, special counsel at the Thomas More Society, a public interest law firm that litigates religious freedom cases and challenges government overreach, told The Epoch Times that when a student learned that the course featuring the photo was a prerequisite to obtain an International Baccalaureate Diploma, "he had no option but to drop out of the program. And then we were retained."
The school's use of the Serrano photo not only "shows extremely poor judgment," but "even more importantly, it is an act of unconstitutional anti-Catholic, anti-Christian bigotry," Jonna said.
The law firm sent a letter threatening legal action and denouncing the photo as a "particularly vile, anti-Catholic image" that constitutes "hate-speech which is intended to, and which actually does, cause devout Catholics to feel directly harassed and targeted."
Jonna added that the school was violating the Constitution, because "both the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause prohibit government hostility to religion," and "teaching this image is tantamount to harassment."
The school relented after enraged parents and students carried out a petition drive.
John Hayward, the student who originally objected to the use of the photograph, said in a statement that "having this sacrilege taken down from a school setting means a lot to all those who helped call for its removal in a time when hate towards the Catholic faith is widespread."
He added that "prior to contacting the Thomas More Society, it was a merely symbolic movement. Until we had the weight of a legal letter, our concerns would have been, and indeed were, brushed off by administrators who proudly defended their blasphemous curriculum as some sort of 'human right.'"
The Santa Barbara Unified School District told The Epoch Times that it "recognizes that the use of the image invokes hurtful responses among many in the community. Because the course curriculum can adequately be covered by discussion and through the utilization of other slides, the image will not be included in the future."
However, the district added that the image "still may be discussed verbally in the context of discussing the confluence of art and censorship, an important issue in addressing the topic of 'what is art.'"
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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