The picture of Jesus had hung in either Jackson High School or the district’s middle school since 1947. Jackson is 75 miles southeast of Columbus. The lawsuit, filed in February, said the image was an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity. The school board had argued that it belonged to the Hi-Y club, a religion-centered student group that had the right to hang it in the school.
A southern Ohio school district has agreed to keep a picture of Jesus off district property and pay $95,000 to settle a lawsuit filed this year by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a Wisconsin foundation.
In the settlement accepted yesterday by U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley, the Jackson City School District agreed to pay $3,000 in damages to each of the suit’s five anonymous plaintiffs.
The district also will pay $80,000 to cover legal fees incurred by the Ohio chapter of the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison, Wis., which sued the district on behalf of the three parents and two students.
The picture of Jesus had hung in either Jackson High School or the district’s middle school since 1947. Jackson is 75 miles southeast of Columbus.
The lawsuit, filed in February, said the image was an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity. The school board had argued that it belonged to the Hi-Y club, a religion-centered student group that had the right to hang it in the school.
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