On The Front Lines

Grinch Strikes: Minnesota School Blocks Jack Skellington ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ Yearbook Poster Amidst Fears It Might Be Religious

Ramsey, Minn. — Warning school officials against being Grinches this Christmas, The Rutherford Institute is calling on Minnesota school officials to reverse their decision to block the display of a student-created art poster depicting Jack Skellington from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and other secular Christmas icons over concerns that it might be construed as religious. Students created the festive poster as part of a sales campaign to encourage people to buy the school yearbook as holiday gifts. Weighing in on the issue on behalf of the yearbook class at PACT Charter School, Rutherford Institute attorneys made clear that school officials, like many school administrations across the country, had misinterpreted the First Amendment, which does prevent the government from establishing an official religion but also prohibits it from censoring free speech and expression. Moreover, given that the poster designed by the students is wholly secular, it cannot in any way be interpreted to constitute a promotion of religion in the school.

“Afraid of controversy, indoctrinated by political correctness, steeped in a zero tolerance mindset, and constitutionally illiterate, school administrators persist in playing the part of the Grinch every December,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. “Yet there’s a really simple solution to this annual angst of whether students and teachers can display Christmas-related posters, wear Christmas colors of red and green or sing Christmas songs, and that is to stop being such Humbugs and create a vibrant, open environment where all expression can flourish.”

Students enrolled in a yearbook class at PACT Charter School were asked to create a poster to advertise sales of the yearbook as a possible holiday gift. The students did as instructed, producing a creative and dazzling poster without any religious iconography, and only including secular Christmas icons and characters, including Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. However, when their teacher attempted to display her students’ work, she was prevented from doing so by school administrators, who cited concerns that the poster constituted an establishment of religion.

In defending the students’ First Amendment rights, Rutherford Institute attorneys explained that courts have consistently ruled that acknowledging the cultural and historical significance of Christmas in schools is fine, so long as there is no attempt to endorse a particular religion. This case joins a multitude of other incidents in which ongoing confusion arising from political correctness over the do’s and don’ts of celebrating Christmas in schools, workplaces and elsewhere has led to perfectly constitutional activity being suppressed by overzealous public servants. For example, in one case, a public school 6th-grade class was asked to make “holiday cards” to send to the troops but were told they could not use the words “Merry Christmas” on their cards. Similarly, nativity displays, Christmas carols, Christmas trees, wreaths, candy canes and even the colors red and green have been banned as part of the effort to avoid any reference to Christmas, Christ or God. Hoping to alleviate this confusion, The Rutherford Institute has made available its “Twelve Rules of Christmas” guidelines.