RISKVUE ARCHIVE | RISK BITES

Witches Strive For Recognition As A Religious Group

Watch out, Blair Witch. The low-budget blockbuster has real witches across the country pushed to the limit with the way they have been portrayed by the media, the government and the general public—and they are having their days in court.

According to The Witches Anti-Discrimination League (WADL), there are approximately three million Americans currently practicing the religion of Wicca, perhaps the most-famous religion embracing the concept of witchcraft. Followers of Wicca often refer to themselves as witches.

Although the American Civil Liberties Union, the US Army Chaplain and the Internal Revenue Service have recognized Wicca as a religion and various court cases have established the legitimacy of this pre-Christian, Neo-pagan belief system, witches constantly find their religious affiliations challenged

Just ask Crystal Seifferly, an honor student at Lincoln Park High School in Michigan who is proud of her Wiccan faith. In October of last year, the school implemented a new policy that prohibited students from wearing particular clothing and accessories associated with gangs. Included on the list was the pentagram—a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle—which is an icon of the Wiccan religion.

Seifferly, with the assistance of the ACLU, sued the Detroit School District for violating a student’s right to wear a religious symbol. ACLU cooperating attorney, Bob Sedler, said the law is clear on this subject: “You cannot allow Christian students to wear crosses and then deny other students the right to wear a pentacle.”

Apparently, Sedler was correct in his assessment of the situation. On March 25, the ACLU won Seifferly the right to wear the pentagram outwardly for the first time since Lincoln Park High initiated the anti-gang policy. The school did away with the policy, allowing students to wear religious jewelry or symbols as professions of their religion. The school also removed the provision that stated “Pagans” and “witches” are inappropriate in a school setting.

The idea of witches fighting for their religious right may seem humorous to some people, but imagine what would happen if the pentagram in this story were replaced with a well-known religious symbol. Similar cases have popped up across the country, and it turns out that Wiccans are not the only religious group facing discrimination.

On August 19, a teacher at Harrison Central High School in Mississippi ordered student Ryan Green to remove the Star of David necklace that his grandmother gave him. Similar to the Seifferly case, the Harrison County School Board implemented an anti-gang policy that prohibited particular clothing and symbols. The Board claimed that a Mississippi group known as Black Gangster Disciples uses a six-pointed star as its symbol and that the Board, therefore, would ban similar stars from the campus.

Five days later on August 24, the school board overturned the controversial decision. The Harrison County School Board voted unanimously to exempt religious symbols from its policy prohibiting students from wearing anything that could be viewed as a gang symbol.

The similarities between the Seifferly and Green cases are glaring. In both cases, the schools misinterpreted religious symbols as gang symbols. In both cases, the courts ruled that religious discrimination occurred when the students were banned from professing their religion on campus. In both cases, the students won based on their right to religious freedom. The main difference between these two cases is that Seifferly had to wait five months before she was able to wear her necklace on campus again, whereas Green only had to wait five days.

National attention swirled around the Green case. Religious leaders from across the nation made statements condemning the Harrison County School Board. Prominent Baptist leader, Jerry Fallwell, said, “This is one more instance in America of hostility toward religion. The fact that this little boy is in a minority in that community should not cause him any consternation.” With mounting pressure, the Board in its next meeting overturned its decision to ban the Star of David.

The Seifferly case received little to no national press. The few articles published were light pieces with headlines like “Honor Student Witch Claims Religious Discrimination.”

The hard truth for the Wiccan people is that the majority of the American public has never even heard the word Wicca (even as I type this, my spell check wonders what Wicca means). When Americans think of witches, they do not think of religion. They think of Bewitched, magical spells, witch hunts, The Wicked Witch of the West, The Witches of Eastwick and so on.

For most, the mere mention of the word “witch” conjures images of the stereotypical characters portrayed in everything from cartoons to Halloween costumes to breakfast cereal.

And now with the recent success of films like The Craft, The Blair Witch Project, and Practical Magic, not to mention television shows such as Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, a new generation of Americans appears to have a fascination with witchcraft. The story lines in these films and television shows are targeted for the under-30 crowd, which indicates the studios are either responding to a new witch craze— or are trying to create one.

The media’s effect on the public perception of Wicca is not lost on the WADL and other pro-witch websites. The WADL website even has a comparison chart of famous fictional witches separating the factual concepts from the fallacies.

In a recent letter to Newsweek, the WADL blasts The Blair Witch Project’s portrayal of witches:

“Although the witch is never shown in the film, The Blair Witch Project (TBWP) portrays witches negatively by perpetuating the stereotype of the evil murderous witch that originated during the time historians call the Witch Hunt. Moreover, TBWP employs actual symbols from the witchcraft religion as catalysts of horror.”

For those who have not seen the movie, the story evolves around three students filming a documentary about a legendary witch in Maryland. The teens get lost in the woods while filming and are hunted by the witch (who never appears on screen). Most of the fear in the film comes from scenes that imply this witch is out for blood. One of these scenes occurs when the three students come across an area in the woods covered with strange symbols supposedly made by the witch. Whereas these symbols would bring joy and happiness to a Wiccan, they bring nothing but fear and dread to the audience who suspect the evil witch must be close by.

The WADL goes on to say, “Replace ‘witch’with the name of any other religion and you can immediately see how offensive the movie is.”

This will, no doubt, become the next wave of employer liability claims as more of these witches come out of their broom closets and into the workforce. Practitioners of Wicca claim they are law-abiding citizens who do not worship the devil, sacrifice animals or vandalize property on Halloween. Like other minority groups in recent years, bold leaders are stepping up to educate the populace and fight for their rights as a religious group.

Employers and schools will need to keep this in mind as they strive to reduce their risk of discrimination and harassment claims. 

Originally published in the October 1999 issue of Claims People Magazine, published by Gregory G. Bragg & Associates. For more information visit www.gbbragg.com.

riskVue | The webzine for risk management professionals
November 1999