Liberty Counsel Offers Free Services to Glendive Public Schools’ District After Legal Threat Stops Field Trip to Creationist Museum

On May 28, a Glendive County public school had plans to take a field trip to see a dinosaur and fossil museum, but later had to cancel after the Glendive School District was contacted by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Now, the Liberty Counsel is getting involved after concerned citizens in the area expressed potential concerns on the constitutionality of school sponsored field trips to venues that "may have a religious viewpoint."

"We believe that the school district was dead wrong for cancelling the trip," Liberty Counsel Vice President Harry Mihet said. "This 'fringe' group that decided to get involved here did not actually sue the district, it merely threatened some type of unspecified legal action. If the school district did not do its bidding, nothing in the U.S. Constitution requires a school district to be hostile to religion or religious viewpoints."

On May 27, KGVO reported on another field trip cancellation from Lincoln Elementary School, after a letter from the AU warned that the field trips were against the law.

Mihet said the Liberty Counsel has sent the school district information regarding laws in this area and told the district that they have been "surely misinformed" by the AU.

"If the school district were to do the right thing and to uphold the constitutional rights of the students and parents of the district, then if they were to be sued by some group out there, Liberty Counsel would defend the district at no charge to the tax payers," Mihet said. "This is what we do."