Judge OKs school’s veto of menorah at tree-lighting

When a woman in Carmel sought to add an inflatable balloon decorated like a menorah to the tree-lighting ceremony at the school her thirdgrader attended, the school turned her down — and had a basis for its refusal, a federal judge says.

Although the afterschool festivity centered around a Christmas tree, the Supreme Court has ruled that Christmas trees are no longer purely religious symbols in U.S. society, U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of San Jose said Friday.

“Although Christmas trees once carried religious connotations, today they typify the secular celebration of Christmas,” Freeman said, quoting the court’s 1989 ruling in a Pennsylvania case.

While that ruling also allowed a local community to place a menorah next to the Christmas tree outside City Hall, Freeman said that in other contexts the menorah, lighted by Jewish households to celebrate Hanukkah, can still be considered an expression of religion. So officials at Carmel River Elementary School had some basis for deciding inclusion of the menorah balloon could be considered an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion, the judge said.

Freeman said other aspects of the case were “troubling” and the mother, Michele Lyons, could still try to prove the school violated her rights. Lyons instead dropped her suit and arranged to display her menorah balloon, inflated, at a home across the street from the school during the tree-lighting.

Both she and her lawyer said they were bewildered by the events.

According to Lyons’ lawsuit, teachers at the school describe Christmas as an “American holiday” and Hanukkah as an “Israeli holiday,” and schedule parties to coincide with Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. She said that was one reason she proposed to add the balloon — which looked like a menorah when inflated, but could not be lit like one — to last week’s ceremony.

Officials sent an email Dec. 3 inviting students to bring items to the ceremony that reflected their “values, heritage, and/or faith.” But they said the local PTA, which sponsored the event, required each item to fit into a paper lunch bag, and rejected the balloon as too large. Meanwhile, Lyons said, despite a formal district policy requiring “objectivity” at holiday festivities, the school kept the tree lit during school hours and promoted other events with a Christmas theme.

“What is the educational purpose?” Lyons said in an email. “It amounts to nothing less than district-sanctioned bullying of impressionable schoolchildren.”

Attorney Sebastian Miller said he still can’t understand how the Supreme Court decided more than three decades ago that a Christmas tree had become secular rather than religious.

“I hope that over the coming years the district leaders will evolve in their thinking even if they aren’t legally required to do so,” he said.

Lawyers for the school did not respond to a request for comment.