EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — Some students and family members in Eagle Mountain have voiced worries over an ‘overtly religious’ video administrators required them to watch recently, leading a national non-profit to raise concerns over its constitutionality.
The complainant says the video was played at Cedar Valley High School on November 17, and it was also posted on the school’s social media platforms.
While it’s since been taken down, FOX 13 News was able to obtain it with help from our partners at the Salt Lake Tribune.
“Hey everybody, I’m so excited,” said Scott Mansfield, the school’s assistant principal. “It’s Friday afternoon at the end of school.”
Mansfield sat down in front of the camera to share what he called an important and emotional message.
“My joke is that - if there is a heaven - when I get up to heaven and they go to see if I can come in or not, they’re going to look at my list of sins and problems and weaknesses and say you’re not welcome here,” Mansfield said. “The strength I have that might save me will be that I know how to work hard. In other words, I will not have the sin of laziness on my list.”
The video was titled ‘The Refiner’s Fire,’ and carried on with reflections on the importance of hard work.
But some say the problem they found within the video goes beyond getting into heaven.
“If a church made this video and put it on their social media, that’s totally fine,” said attorney Sammi Lawrence. “The problem is a public school is supposed to be neutral when it comes to religion. It’s not supposed to promote religion or be anti-religion”
Lawrence is on staff with the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) and says this issue was brought to their attention by a concerned family member of a student.
FFRF sent a letter to the Alpine School District, saying it is unconstitutional to film a video preaching personal religions at a public high school.
Others posted replies under the post voicing worries over a lack of separation between church and state.
The video continued with messaging about hard work which some found inappropriate.
“If you ever go to bed depressed or sad, guess what? You probably haven’t worked hard enough,” said Mansfield.
“The comments about mental health in the video were also just very insensitive and offensive to the person who complained to us,” Lawrence responded.
In a statement to FOX 13 News, district officials say they took the video down after meeting with concerned students.
But Lawrence wants to learn more about how they investigated this issue and what they’ll do moving forward.
“We would like to see them take steps in the future so that similar things don’t happen,” said Lawrence.
In their written response, the school district went on to say:
“It was not the intention of the administrator in the video to push religious beliefs on anyone, nor to make students feel bad about themselves. As a learning organization, we look for opportunities to improve every day, and offer grace to those who are making efforts to do better.
We regret any hurt feelings that resulted from the video.”
