False Freedom

America advertises false freedom

Students share concerns about the ‘in God we trust’ law in Texas

Malak Samara samarmal000@hsestudents.org

As the school year begins across America, there has been an increase in con icts over what should and should not be showcased, talked about and done in schools. In Texas, some students walk into a school lled with signs that have ‘in God we trust’ plastered all over them. ose who believe in a di erent God or do not believe in one at all, feel a sudden sense of discomfort and exclusivity. “Schools are supposed to be completely neutral grounds where the main value and the only value really should be education for all students,” senior Lauren Hobson said. “Not religion, not trying to indoctrinate you. None of that.” Recently, headlines such as ‘Florida Gov. DeSantis leads a nationwide shi to politicizing school board races’ and ‘An activist plans to test Texas’ ‘In God We Trust’ law with signs in Arabic’ have been popping up in the news. Most have shown debates about rights that are being taken away in predominantly school settings, but also in America as a whole. Many of these issues have gone unnoticed by those who do not have a passion for news or are not a part of a current issues class. Sophomore Ruba Alzahrani believes that staying up to date with the news is vital to knowing what is going on around the world and how it can a ect each individual. “Keeping up to date with things really can help somebody understand the world better right now,” freshman Eddison Durante said. “Being able to keep in touch with everything that’s going on and watching the news every night is important.” Moreover, Alzahrani has grown to gure out that the most fundamental thing a person can do to protect their rights is to know what they are in the rst place. While racism has always been a problem in America, people’s ignorance of their constitutional rights feeds into it. “ e bill of rights is a good bill if people actually followed it,” Alzahrani said. “ For example, [there is] freedom of religion. However, people get killed and harassed if they don’t follow a certain religion in [America].” roughout the years, factions and a growing passion for certain political parties have in uenced the laws and news more than anything. “[ e American system] is de nitely skewed so that it’s more of just a political party debate at this point,” Hobson said. “It really just comes down to a battle of political ideologies and not actually caring about the issues at hand and more so just pushing largely funded political organization’s agendas. As the world modernizes and progresses into the future, interpretations of what are and are not rights start to evolve.” It is problems such as prioritizing political views over the needs of U.S. citizens that allow for laws such as the ‘in God we trust’ law to be passed. e law was passed in many states, but more speci cally, it was passed in Texas in 2021. It requires schools to put up any signs that are donated to them with the saying ‘in God we trust’, the American ag and the Texas ag. “I do not truly understand why they made that law,” Durante said. “Not everybody follows that religion and believes in God, there are plenty of students and families. Having [the signs] up around the school doesn’t make sense when people may or may not follow that religion.” Not only do the signs create a sense of exclusivity for those whose views do not line up with them, but it also showcases contradictions to what America preaches and was built on. is includes diversity, opportunities for all and acceptance of everyone’s beliefs. “Christianity seems to be the main value of much of America, rather than education,” Hobson said. “It shows prejudices are still ingrained in America and that [people] are disregarding what the foundational values for America initially were.” One of the foundational beliefs that the ‘in God we trust’ law seems to come in direct con ict with is the concept of separation of church and state. is means that under the U.S. Constitution, it is forbidden for states to create laws that favor certain religious viewpoints in order to preserve the freedom of religion. “If you’re putting ‘in God we trust’ in schools, especially public schools, that is already integrating church back into the state,” Hobson said. “So, I nd it very interesting that for [in God we trust] signs donated that they are immediately supposed to be put up.” Due to the sudden media and news revolving around the law being passed, it is common for students in di erent states to worry

about the law being implemented into their school district. For Durante, they have always seen school as a space for people to strip their religious beliefs away and be present with people who have beliefs on di erent sides of the spectrum. erefore, adding the signs to FHS would remove the sense of community the school has built. Alzahrani, on the other hand, said that she, personally, would not have a problem with the signs since her beliefs line up with them. However, she expressed that she was more concerned for those who would stop considering school as a safe space because of the sudden push for the belief of God. “I would not be happy about that at all,” Hobson said. “If ‘in God we trust’ signs were put up in FHS, I would immediately le complaints to the school board because that is not how our public school system should be running.” Recently, Srivan Krishna, an activist, decided to test the ‘in God we trust’ law by donating two signs that followed all the requirements but had slight changes that catered to di erent groups of people. e rst sign had the message translated into Arabic and the second sign had the LGBTQ+ ag as the background. “If you’re trying to test the government, that is de nitely the way to do it,” Durante said. “I feel like that was de nitely a smart [way] to see what they would do about it and what their reaction would be.” ose two signs were chosen, in particular, to challenge the indirect indoctrination of Christian beliefs that are portrayed through the original signs. According to Hobson, Christian values do not accept LGBTQ+ members and do not accept a language that represents a di erent religion. “[Krishna] submitted the Arabic sign because people have this picture printed in their minds that all Muslims are just terrorists and Arabic is the language of the holy book in Islam,” Alzahrani said. “For the LGBTQ+ one, a lot of conversations have been going on around the world about the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.” On Aug. 31, the school board that Krishna had tried to challenge rejected his donations. eir reason was the schools already had enough donations and did not need anymore. What most activists found confusing, however, was there was never a quota put onto the law. Both Alzahrani and Durante believe that the districts’ response was a way to divert people’s attention from the fact that they did not want to showcase signs that promoted di erent beliefs in their schools. “I think it’s very interesting that both of those signs, one of them not being in English, and the other one being a minority, were both rejected,” Hobson said. “Even though those signs were being donated to the schools under the same conditions [as the original ones].” When Krishna decided to challenge the law by donating both of the ‘unordinary’ signs and speaking out about the rejections of those signs, he was exercising his right to peacefully protest. Hobson believes that in doing so, he is ensuring that American principles are truly being upheld and preventing corruption. “I feel like there are so many people who aren’t accepting of religion, supporting a group or protesting,” Durante said. “However, if it’s in the Constitution [like] the freedom of speech, the right to calmly protest and the freedom to practice any religion then that’s all legal.” e long-term negative e ect that the ‘in God we trust’ law and rejection of certain signs leaves is the doubt that America truly believes in diversity as one of its main foundations. According to Alzahrani, the Arabic and LGBTQ+ signs needed to be accepted in order to send a message to American citizens that all people of di erent backgrounds are welcomed and encouraged. Instead, the law does the exact opposite by solidifying people’s beliefs that America preaches false inclusivity. “By picking and choosing which groups of people to accept, prejudices are being furthered,” Hobson said. “Such is the case with the ‘in God we trust’ Christian law and rejection of non-English languages and minority groups. is law once again showcases the true reality of America, where not all people will receive the same quality of life.”

Design by Malak Samara.