7 Fundamentalist Families Win $50,000 in Suit on Textbooks

A federal judge on Monday awarded more than $50,000 to seven fundamentalist Christian families who paid to send their children to private schools so they would not have to read public school texts they found religiously offensive.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Thomas G. Hull brought promises of an appeal from Hawkins County School Board attorney Nat Coleman, who said that the decision amounts to public financing of religious education.

Hull ordered that the families be paid $50,521.59 to reimburse them for tuition, school lunches, mileage to and from school and the parents’ lost wages while attending depositions and court sessions.

‘Amount Not Important’

“The amount is not important,” Coleman said. “The constitutional question is, and that will be the basis of our appeal.”

The parents originally sought $53,171.59 in out-of-pocket expenses.

Hull ruled Oct. 24 that the school board violated the families’ civil rights by forcing their children to remain in reading classes when their parents believed that their religious beliefs were being undermined by material in the 1983 edition of the Holt, Rinehart, Winston reading series.

The families said that the books taught evolution, the occult, secular humanism and 13 other anti-religious themes.

Hull, in his October ruling, cleared the way for the children to return to public schools and not attend classes for reading, which could be taught at home.

But during Monday’s testimony, parents from six of the seven families said that they were afraid to send their children back because of the animosity the lawsuit had generated among school officials, teachers and pupils.

The seventh family did not attend Monday’s hearing. None of the families have children in public schools.

Hull rejected the school board’s argument that the parents did not look for the least costly means of alternative education.

“The money spent was a reasonable expense,” Hull said in his ruling from the bench. “They had to go somewhere and they had to go fast.”

The families were awarded $2,650 less than they requested because Hall would not allow reimbursement for the tuitions paid by the families when their children later went on to high school. Hull said the Holt readers were not used at that level.