A Texas school district’s flagpole raises questions about America’s separation of church and state

By Pooja Salhotra 

The Texas Tribune

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The first time Kenneth Bitz drove past the newly constructed auditorium in LaPoynor Independent School District southwest of Tyler in 2017, he was offended.

He saw three flagpoles — one for the U.S. flag, one for the Texas flag, and, alarmingly to him, one that flew a Christian flag bearing a cross. Bitz considered that third flag a gross violation of church-state separation.

“It’s like a glaring red flag,” said Bitz, a resident of the unincorporated community of LaRue in Henderson County. “As far as I know, this is the only district that flies a Christian flag.”

Bitz wasn’t the only one concerned about the placement of a religious symbol on public property. A national nonprofit group asked the East Texas district that serves fewer than 500 students to take down the flag, arguing it violated the separation of church and state, a principle that has long been widely considered to be enshrined in the First Amendment. In a letter to the district’s superintendent, attorneys from the Freedom from Religion Foundation said displaying the cross amounted to an “unconstitutional endorsement of religion” and that the district must immediately remove it.