Biblical Passages in School’s Yearbook Lead to Suspension

The yearbook adviser at Buena Park Junior High School has been suspended with pay for inserting biblical references into the school’s yearbook without approval, district officials said Wednesday.

The incident has delayed distribution of the books, cost the district $6,000 in additional printing costs and created a debate over First Amendment rights versus separation of church and state.

The adviser, Phillip Fivgas, an art and physical education teacher who was suspended from his $27,000-a-year job last Friday, acknowledged Wednesday that he inserted passages from the Old and New Testament on many of the yearbook’s 76 pages. But he contended that two of the school’s vice principals reviewed the yearbook with the biblical passages before it was published--a claim the district denies.

“I study the Word. It means a lot to me,” said Fivgas, 37, who was suspended last Friday. “We have been beaten over our heads not to include anything biblical in our teachings. There’s something wrong about that.”

Buena Park Junior High Principal Ronald L. Barry said two assistant principals reviewed the yearbook, “Perceptions,” before it went to print and before the Scriptures were added.

“We believe they were inserted after the fact,” Barry said. The yearbook, he added, “caused great embarrassment” when the printed copies were delivered to the school last week.

Buena Park School District Supt. Jack Townsend said school officials took a copy of the book to three different law firms, all of which deemed it unacceptable for distribution. Legal advisers at the Orange County Department of Education agreed.

“The establishment clause of the First Amendment prohibits a government agency such as the school district from endorsing any particular religion or even favoring any particular religious viewpoint,” said Geraldine Jaffe, an attorney at the Orange County Department of Education.

“The verses in the yearbook . . . had the effect of conveying a religious message. . . .”

Among the passages was a quote on Page 74 under the section awards from Galatians, Verses 19 to 23, which read:

“The wrong things the sinful self does are clear: being sexually unfaithful, not being pure, taking part in sexual sins, worshiping false gods, doing witchcraft. . . . Those who do these things will not be in God’s Kingdom.”

And under the section on leadership on Page 8, Fivgas inserted a quote from the Book of Matthew: “And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher. But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Based on the legal opinions they received, school officials returned the 400 copies of “Perceptions” to the publisher and asked for reprints, at a cost of $6,000, Townsend said. The new books are to be distributed today.

Fivgas, who began teaching at Buena Park Junior High a year ago, disputed the argument that publishing the passages violated the First Amendment, and said that it was his and the yearbook staff’s constitutional right to free speech that was being abridged.

“Right now, I’m not upset with my own plight,” said Fivgas, who often jotted down Biblical verses on his chalkboard at the beginning of each week. “The kids are being denied something that belongs to them. These kids are getting a raw deal.”

Students at the school were informed during a Monday assembly that the yearbook had been withdrawn. On the same day, the district sent a letter to parents informing them that the yearbook distribution had been delayed. Some reacted angrily when they learned the cause.

“It’s discriminatory of them to take the yearbooks away from us just because there are biblical passages in them,” said parent Joe Flynn, whose daughter Debbie is graduating from the school. “We feel that if quotes had been placed in the yearbook from Chaucer or Jack London or Martin Luther King, there would not have been any problem. The Bible is also a master literary work. Why couldn’t it stay?”

Fivgas said he chose the biblical references in the yearbook because they fit different themes in the book. He referred to the references, which are not quoted by chapter and verse, as “words of wisdom that deal with morality.”

“They were not included to teach religion,” Fivgas said. “They were about morality.”