Friend:

The college and career fairs my three kids attended in high school were in gymnasiums and conference rooms filled with booths for colleges and universities, technical schools and internship opportunities, career and military recruiters. I’d never heard of one in a large church where kids are proselytized and forced to listen to traumatizing, religion-infused stories. Until this past week. Please read on.

When parents in East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, signed school permission slips for their kids to attend the “Day of Hope,” they only knew that the school district’s superintendent was promoting it as a college and career fair. They didn’t know their kids would be bused to a church for an event co-sponsored by an organization whose mission includes “redirect[ing] our students to Jesus Christ.”

Students said they were forced to listen to speakers who promoted purity culture and told disturbing stories about suicide to advance their world vision. And LGBTQ children reportedly were harassed and ostracized when the students were divided up for gender-specific presentations. While the girls heard about the “virtues” of virginity and forgiving their attackers, the boys were encouraged to participate in push-up contests. All at the “college and career fair.”

It's crystal clear that East Baton Rouge Parish School violated the religious freedom of students, their families and staff (even teacher chaperones complained about this program) by sponsoring and promoting an event with religious content. We explained that in a letter we sent to the district last week, demanding that administrators make sure this never happens again.

Sadly, these violations are all too common in public schools across the country. And, after this Supreme Court term, they’ll only become more common as religious extremists and their political allies have become more emboldened. That’s why I urge you to make sure all the public school students, parents and teachers in your life are familiar with our “Know Your Rights” guides and that they can report religious freedom violations to our attorneys right on the homepage of our website, au.org.

Together, we must empower students and families to understand their rights, speak out when those rights are violated and know that Americans United will be there to help them fight for their rights—just as we did in East Baton Rouge Parish. That’s the only way we can stop Christian nationalists from taking over public schools.

With hope and determination,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO

P.S. In case you missed it, Andrew Seidel, AU’s VP of Strategic Communications, released his new book this week—you can order your copy of “American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom” from Andrew’s local bookstore, or wherever you like to buy books.