In Joki v. Board of Education of the Schuylerville Central School District, a New York district court held that a school’s display of a student’s religiously-themed artwork violated the Establishment Clause. The work at issue was a painting that depicted, among other things, a man hanging from a cross with a crown of thorns, as a bright yellow light shone on the figure from the sky. While the school district and the student artist maintained that the painting represented only “man’s inhumanity to man,” the plaintiffs argued that the painting conveyed a religious message. Applying the test articulated by the Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, the court held that the display was unconstitutional because, taking into account the content and context of the painting, a reasonable observer would likely have perceived the school’s display as an endorsement of Christianity. The court examined the painting and noted that the cross symbolizes central Christian themes and represents the key Christian concept of crucifixion. Further, the court found, the central figure in the painting resembles the crucified Jesus as depicted in the Bible. There was no sign or placard explaining the purported secular meaning of the painting, and there was nothing to neutralize the overtly religious message of the work. Thus, the court found that a reasonable observer, in this case an impressionable young student, would perceive the painting as government endorsement of Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause.
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