National Review
After Censorship Threat, Students to Be Allowed to Sing Christian Songs at Talent Show
By Ryan Mills
May 1, 2025 1:05 PM
Students at a western Michigan elementary school will be permitted to sing religious songs at an upcoming talent show after school leaders previously said they couldn’t perform songs that are “Christian-based” and include “very clear language about worshiping God.”
In an email to National Review on Thursday, Allegan Public Schools Superintendent James Antoine said the staffers who had threatened to prohibit the performance of religious-themed music “were unfamiliar with the legal guidelines concerning religious expression in a public school setting.”
“To clarify,” he wrote, “students are permitted to perform songs of their choice, including those with religious content, provided the material complies with the student code of conduct—particularly regarding language and theme. Religious songs have been, and will continue to be, allowed at school events like talent shows.”
Concerns about religious discrimination at the school were raised on Tuesday when a teacher at West Ward Elementary School in Allegan, Mich. told the mother of a second-grader and fifth-grader that allowing her kids to sing “Christian-based” songs by artists Brandon Lake and Colton Dixon would violate the separation of church and state, according to the First Liberty Institute, which is representing the students.
Principal Molly Carl said that the second-grader’s song, That’s Who I Praise by Lake, was problematic because “there’s some very clear language about worshiping God” and it included the word “slaves” — a clear reference to the Biblical story of Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt to the Promised Land, First Liberty claims.
The teacher also told the fifth-grader and told her the issue with her song, Up and Up by Dixon, is that “not everyone believes in God,” according to First Liberty.
On Wednesday, First Liberty sent a letter to Carl and the teacher calling for the students to be allowed to sing their songs in an audition on Thursday and in the talent show on May 23. Censoring the students’ song choices based on their Christian content would violate their First Amendment religious-freedom and free-speech rights, First Liberty says.
“It’s cruel that a school would threaten to censor elementary students from singing popular songs just because they are religious,” First Liberty lawyer Kayla Toney said in a press release. “As the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized, students do not lose their First Amendment rights when they walk through the schoolhouse gates. School officials need to comply with the law and stop censoring students’ religious expression.”
According to the First Liberty letter, the second-grader’s song was flagged for review by the school’s talent show committee due only to its religious content. Carl offered the boy a “thoughtful” compromise to allow him to sing his song at Thursday’s audition, though she said the song would have to be “adjustable” if he proceeded to the talent show, and he may need to find a more “acceptable option,” according to the letter.
Forcing the students “to change their song choice or lyrics would be unconstitutional censorship and viewpoint discrimination,” First Liberty states in its letter. “Indeed, reviewing their lyrics and debating with impressionable students the wisdom of their song choice, all with a suspicious eye, is itself gravely concerning. Singling out anyone—much less children—for opprobrium merely because of their religion is, as the Supreme Court has said in another context, ‘odious to our Constitution.’”
Antoine said in his email that the district regrets any confusion or frustration caused by his staff’s disagreements over the performance of religious-themed songs.
“The student was given the opportunity to audition and will be performing in the upcoming talent show,” he wrote. “We are also reviewing our internal communication processes to ensure that similar matters are appropriately reviewed before decisions are communicated to students or families.”
The talent show in Michigan is the most recent example of public schools attempting to bar religious expression in their buildings or on their campuses under the belief that allowing it is akin to an endorsement of the religion.
Last week, First Liberty sent a letter to leaders of a Utah school demanding that they stop barring a first-grade teacher from posting an invitation to a voluntary prayer chain in her school’s breakroom. Earlier this year, a middle-school teacher in Connecticut sued her school district’s leaders after they prohibited her from posting a small crucifix near her desk while allowing other teachers to post secular images, including cartoon characters and sports pennants. She is also represented by First Liberty.
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