Essay on religious freedom. (Making a Difference).

Elizabeth Johnson, 11, attends Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, Colorado. Shortly before Christmas last year, the sixth-grader, along with her classmates, was assigned an oral report on a book of her choice. Elizabeth, a member of the First Baptist Church in Broomfield, likes the Bible, so opted to share the book of Exodus with her class. She insists that she was not trying to push her religion on the other students, but simply wanted to describe how Moses "rescued the slaves, and how he was born."

Her teachers promptly vetoed the choice, allegedly telling her that the Bible might be "offensive" to children of different religious faiths. An attorney for the Boulder Valley School District insisted that the rejection was not based on religious considerations, but rather on a concern that the Bible would not meet the assignment's requirement that students describe their book's protagonist and setting, and discuss the relationship between the picture on the cover and the plot.

Following a discussion with Kathleen Johnson, Elizabeth's mother, Peak to Peak middle school Principal Bernita Grove agreed to modify the ground rules to allow the girl to prepare a written report, but not deliver an oral one in class as other students would do. That, Elizabeth told Denver's Rocky Mountain News for December 13th, was "definitely" discrimination.

When Denver attorney Robert Corry learned of the controversy, he wrote a detailed letter to the school district, explaining that the school was violating Elizabeth's free speech rights and could face a lawsuit unless she was allowed to deliver her oral report about Exodus. Corry is affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADD, which specializes in religious-freedom issues.

Gage Fellows, one of Corry's associates, contacted Denver television station KUSA-TV, which in turn began looking into the controversy. According to an ADF news release, "within 20 minutes the school district ... backed down and Elizabeth was able to do her book report." School officials concluded that the Bible did, after all, meet the assignment's litmus test.

Kathleen Johnson told the Rocky Mountain News that while she and her daughter forgive the school, "I feel like all children have the right, in the United States, to talk about what's important to them in school. It's not right for people to say you need to keep that at home, you can't bring that with you wherever you go." Corry commented: "This is a victory for freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion."