Girl Sues After Report on Jesus Not Accepted

DICKSON, Tenn. — A junior high school student who cried when a teacher refused to let her submit a research paper on the life of Jesus has sued the school board for upholding the decision.

Kurt Beasley, a Rutherford Institute attorney for Brittney Kaye Settle, says she was given a zero for refusing to select another subject, but the teacher, Dana Ramsey, allowed other students to submit papers on such topics as reincarnation, spiritualism and the occult.

Beasley was assigned to the case by the Rutherford Institute, a religious rights group based in Charlottesville, Va.

“This is censorship, plain and simple,” Beasley was quoted in the Catholic Messenger of Davenport, Iowa. “The First Amendment was written to prevent government officials from doing the very thing they’ve done here--choosing viewpoints they will allow and which ones they won’t.”