A federal judge has ruled that a 15-year-old Texas girl must wear an
identification badge to her high school for monitoring purposes or else
face suspension.
US District Judge Orlando Garcia decided with a Tuesday ruling that
John Jay High School student Andrea Hernandez has only two choices: be
tracked from classroom-to-classroom or go somewhere else.
Hernandez,
backed by the support of her parents and civil liberties groups alike,
says she shouldn’t have to a wear an ID badge to school, particularly
the kind that’s embedded with RFID chips to track the movements of
students. San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District made those
devices mandatory in the fall in order to more accurately track
attendance figures, but Hernandez objects because she says it’s the
equivalent to walking the halls with the “Mark of the Beast.”
“‘We must obey the word of God,” her father said in court documents obtained by Wired.
“By
asking my daughter and our family to participate and fall in line like
the rest of them is asking us to disobey our Lord and Savior.”
Attorneys
for Hernandez have hoped that the court would grant an injunction
against the district to keep the girl badge-free, but this week Judge
Garcia said the requirement of wearing a card
"has an incidental effect, if any, on (Hernandez's) religious beliefs.”
Herndanez’ refusal to follow the rules, ruled the justice,
"is clearly a secular choice, rather than a religious concern."
Under
the district’s new “Smart ID” program, roughly 4,200 students between
two area schools are required to wear the cards. Hernandez says that,
for not using the badge, she has been unable to participate in certain
school functions and told she can’t enter certain rooms, such as the
cafeteria and library.
"I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID," Hernandez told WND last year
.
"I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be
good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the
new ID with the chip in order to vote."
Northside has offered
Hernandez an ID badge that is not outfitted with a microchip, but her
parents and attorneys both say they will not accept that as a
compromise.
“For Hernandez, a Christian, the badges pose a
significant religious freedom concern in addition to the obvious privacy
issues,” explains the Rutherford Institute, a civil liberties and
human rights group that has represented the student throughout her legal
battle
. “Andrea’s religious objection derives from biblical
teachings that equate accepting a personalized code — as a sign of
submission to government authority and as a means of obtaining certain
privileges from a secular ruling authority — with a form of idolatry or
submission to a false god.”
The court seemed less certain with that interpretation, however, insisting “
The
accommodation offered by the district is not only reasonable it removes
plaintiff’s religious objection from legal scrutiny all together.”
The Northside School District hailed the judge’s decision by releasing a statement saying the ruling “
affirms
NISD’s position that we did make reasonable accommodation to the
student by offering to remove the RFID chip from the student’s smart ID
badge.”
Hernandez now has until January 18 to decide to
either wear the badge or else go to a different school. Her legal
counsel with the Rutherford Institute says they will file an appeal,
though.
“The Supreme Court has made clear that government
officials may not scrutinize or question the validity of an individual’s
religious beliefs,” Rutherford Institute President John W. Whitehead says in a statement.
“By
declaring Andrea Hernandez’s objections to be a secular choice and not
grounded in her religious beliefs, the district court is placing itself
as an arbiter of what is and is not religious. This is simply not
permissible under our constitutional scheme, and we plan to appeal this
immediately.”
Chris Steinbach, the chief of staff for a
Republican state lawmaker who wants to outlaw the technology in Texas
schools, tells the AP it’s unusual to see the story attract the
attention of such a diverse crowd.
"How often do you see an issue where the ACLU and Christian fundamentalists come together?” he asks the AP.
