Thursday, April 24, 2014

Should Grand Jury Investigate Teachers’ Religious Beliefs? 1919

By W.T. “Tom” Bost, from the Elizabeth City Independent, April 18, 1919

Judge Allen Goes Astray

Judge Oliver H. Allen, holding court in this district during the spring term, has promised to amplify his amazing charge of a few days ago when he told the grand-jury that it was the duty of the jurors to inquire into the religious views of their school-teachers and superintendents.


The judge said he had heard that a teacher had been teaching evolution and he chose rather to allow his children to grow up in subter-ignorance than to swallow such poison as that. He did not indicate how a grand-jury might pass on theological soundness. But one of the papers remembering how the judge declined three years ago to conduct an inquiry into a lynching in his home town, got under the cuticle of the judge and brought forth his suggestion that he make it a special endeavor to set himself right next time.

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