What apparently happened was that the Cupertino Union School District received complaints from several parents that the teacher was advocating his particular sectarian view of Christianity in the classroom through his lesson plans and religiously oriented materials he handed out in class. After an initial inquiry the School Board required Mr. Williams to submit both his lesson plans and any handouts to the school principal for review prior to introducing them to the class. The materials that were not approved included excerpts taken from the Declaration and from Penn’s 1682 Frame for the Government of Pennsylvania as well as excerpts from selected private writings of 18th Century American political figures and the 2004 Proclamation by President Bush of a national day of prayer according to the complaint that Williams filed. That much was reported by Reuters based upon information released by the teacher’s lawyers.

The report did not include references to the other materials involved even though they were included in the complaint in its paragraph 40. Included in the complaint in addition to the materials cited in Reuters’ report were an un-attributed sheet entitled, “What Great Leaders Have Said About The Bible”; an excerpt from the theological writings Jean Jacques Burlamaqui and a self written “Fact Sheet: Coins and Currency – History of “In God We Trust.”

Burlamaqui was a Swiss cleric and jurist whose treatise on natural and political law claimed a theological origin for all law. This obscure 18th Century theologian is featured in the view of the First Amendment published on the web-site of RWYouth, the youth outreach central feature program of Robert Welch University. Robert Welch University, named for the founder of the John Birch Society, promises a classical education devoted to principals of what it calls Americanism and an online degree program to commence in September 2005. What connection, if any Williams has with that organization is unknown but the lesson plans the complaint claims were rejected are echoed on the organization’s web-site. http://rwyouth.com/     http://www.robertwelchuniversity.org/content.php?sec=2&cat=4

The Religious Right Wing has its narrow agenda with respect to education. It is to parochialize the public schools by introducing prescribed prayer and subjecting curriculum to a religious test for orthodoxy or in the alternative to destroy the secular public school system by starvation; diverting tax resources to subsidize privately operated schools through a voucher system and place them beyond the proscription of the establishment clause. Until one or the other goal is met children are inoculated against the creeping infection of unapproved knowledge by so-called “home schooling” – all in the pursuit of what they call “balanced instruction”. Mr. William’s law suit is part of that effort.