Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has criticized a public school in Mobile County for sending a teacher home for wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words "just pray."
The principal at Pearl Haskew Elementary School in Irvington had asked third grade teacher Chris Burrell to change the shirt in question on April 23, citing a policy prohibiting teachers and students from wearing clothes with explicit religious messages.
Burrell explained in a social media post that she bought the shirt last year in a fundraiser to support 11-year-old Aubreigh Nicholas, who is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).
In a statement on Wednesday, Ivey condemned the school's decision, arguing that the teacher's shirt was protected by religious liberty.
"Religious liberty is a cornerstone of the freedoms we enjoy in our country. For a teacher to be disallowed from wearing a shirt that exhorts others to pray, especially for a child suffering from terminal cancer, is simply unacceptable," the governor said, according to AL.com.
"The right to express one's religious beliefs, including prayer which was often invoked by George Washington himself, is not lost when one enters the schoolhouse door. I am committed to protecting religious freedom for everyone, including our teachers and school children," she continued.
The issue has drawn media attention after Burrell wrote about the incident on her Facebook page. According to Fox News, the teacher explained in her now-deleted post that she "didn't think twice" about wearing the shirt as she did not intend to promote any religion.
The principal initially asked her if the could wear a sweater to cover the wording, but she was later asked to go home and change her shirt.
Burrell asserted that the principal did not know that the shirt was a part of the fundraising efforts to support Nicholas.
Fox News reported that the shirt was created by a group called Aubreigh's Army, which seeks to raise awareness about DIPG.
Mobile County Public Schools Superintendent Martha Peek argued that the school principal still "would have had to exercise her judgment" even though she was not aware about the fundraising campaign for Nicholas.
Yahoo News reported that the Mobile County Public School System handbook does not specifically mention religion when it comes to the prohibition of certain messages on clothing.
The handbook specifically prohibits clothing with messages promoting alcohol, tobacco and controlled substances, as well as those containing words or symbols that are sexual in nature or those that depict violence, nudity and profanity.
