South Carolina elementary school forced to cut ties with Operation Christmas Child, ‘violates the Constitution’
East Point Academy, a charter school in South Carolina, ended its three year partnership with Operation Christmas Child, a group helping impoverished children, due to “violations with the constitution.”
Public domain photo/US Government
After receiving a complaint from the American Humanist Association’s Appginani Humanist Legal Center, school director Renee Mathews withdrew participation and support to avoid litigation.
“I assure you that many public schools in SC and across the United States participate in Operation Christmas Child,” she wrote in a letter parents.
“At our school only non-religious items have been collected for the boxes, no religious material is distributed to students or included with the boxes and the school has expended no money for the shipping of the boxes which each voluntary participant paid.”
The group called the partnership a ““serious constitutional violation occurring at the school.”
“Because the purpose and effect of Operation Christmas Child is to induce impoverished children to convert to Christianity, the school’s promotion of this program violates the Constitution,” read the letter. “The boxes of toys are essentially a bribe, expressly used to pressure desperately poor children living in developing countries to convert to Christianity.”
In a press release, Monica Miller, an attorney for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, called the school’s participation “in a proselytizing religious program” inappropriate.
Sadly, parents had already boxed tons of items for children and now were instructed to give the packages to the charity of their choice.
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