Published: February 1, 1996

Student Essay On Jesus Prompts Legal Battle

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by a Tennessee student who argued that her junior high school English teacher unfairly discriminated against her when the teacher refused to accept a research paper she had written about the life of Jesus.

The case of Brittney Settle, who was a 9th grader in Dickson, Tenn., when the dispute arose in 1991, has been widely cited in recent months by religious conservatives as evidence of the need to amend the U.S. Constitution to provide stronger protections for religious expression in public schools. (See box below.)

The dispute began when Dana Ramsey, Settle's English teacher at Dickson County Junior High School, assigned students a research paper on any topic they chose. The teacher, however, rejected Settle's proposed topic, telling her that a paper on Jesus was "not an appropriate thing to do...