Georgia Today: Fire at Stone Mountain; Literacy initiative; Baptism at HS football practice

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, Nov. 14. I'm Peter Biello. On today's episode, a fire at Stone Mountain destroyed the park's largest historic home. Georgia's launching a new literacy initiative and baptisms at a Tattnall County Public schools football practice have prompted accusations of unconstitutional religious coercion. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Peter Biello: The district attorney in Atlanta's Fulton County is asking for an emergency order to protect discovery materials in Georgia's election interference racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and others. GPB's Stephen Fowler has more.

Stephen Fowler: Monday evening, several news outlets posted snippets of video statements from four defendants who took plea deals in the 2020 election interference racketeering case. There were new details about efforts to overturn the presidential results and other insights. Tuesday morning, prosecutors asked a judge for a protective order limiting the disclosure of the so-called proper videos and other evidence provided to defense attorneys throughout the discovery process. They argue the leaks were intended to, quote, "intimidate witnesses and obstruct the administration of justice." The Fulton DA's office previously asked for a protective order in September, but a judge has not ruled on it yet. For GPB News, I'm Stephen Fowler.

Story 2:

Peter Biello: A fire at Georgia's Stone Mountain Park this morning destroyed the park's largest historic home. The Dickey House was built in Albany in the 1840s and moved to Stone Mountain in 1961 as part of the state's efforts to build a tourist attraction there. John Bankhead of the park's public safety office says the House had a collection of unique artifacts.

John Bankhead: You really can't replace its, you know, historic value. And the items in the house are also, you know, of historic value. So it's a tragic loss.

Peter Biello: DeKalb County fire officials are investigating the cause of the blaze.

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Georgia is launching a new literacy initiative. The collaboration between the Georgia Department of Education and the Atlanta-based Rollins Center for Language and Literacy will help primary school teachers get up to speed on the new state reading standards. GPB's Grant Blankenship has more.

Grant Blankenship: By law, Georgia public schools now must teach reading through evidence-based instruction, and the evidence is the cognitive science of reading.

Amy Denty: This 25-year body of research that we have, it is so complex.

Grant Blankenship: That's Amy Denty, director of literacy for the Georgia Department of Education. She says those concepts can stay locked in a teacher's head.

Amy Denty: We don't want to just know it up here. We want it happening in the rooms with those 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds.

Grant Blankenship: So over two years, the Georgia Literacy Academy will train a cohort of teachers, so-called navigators, in 10 school districts and three charter schools to help their colleagues bridge the gap between science of reading to practice. All of the program's training material will also be made free and available online For GPB News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Macon.

Story 4:

Peter Biello: The U.S. House is expected to vote this afternoon on a stopgap spending measure to avoid a government shutdown. GPB's Sarah Kalis reports, thousands of Georgians might have to work without pay if Congress can't reach a budget deal by Friday.

Sarah Kallis: Employees of some government agencies like the Transportation Security Agency, or TSA, have to go to work even when the government is shut down. They are considered essential but will not get paid until Congress agrees on a budget and the government reopens. Aaron Barker is a TSA agent in Atlanta where the pay average is about $20 per hour. He said the last government shutdown for some of his colleagues to make difficult decisions about necessities.

Aaron Barker: Some officers had to resort to sleeping in their cars because they didn't have gas, you know, to get to and from work having to make the decision to buy food or purchase medication.

Sarah Kallis: The last government shutdown began Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted 35 days. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis in Atlanta.

Story 5:

Peter Biello: Some of Atlanta's civil rights history is on display at an exhibit highlighting the Girl Scouts at the Atlanta History Center. GPB's Devon Zwald Has more.

Devon Zwald: Rosalyn Pope was one of the authors of An Appeal for Human Rights, the 1960 manifesto that helped spur advances in civil rights. She was also a member of a Girl Scout troop in District 5, made up of the first Black Girl Scout troops in Atlanta. Exhibit Curator Timothy Frilingos says Pope was the Atlanta representative, and only black Girl Scout, to attend a national camp in the early 1950s.

Timothy Frilingos: It's interesting to think about how that might have played into her also being able to step up during the Atlanta student movement as well.

Devon Zwald: He says another member of District 5, Madeline Nix, helped integrate the Atlanta Public Schools in 1961.

Peter Biello: So those are the notable names, but countless others participated in the civil rights movement up until today.

Devon Zwald: The exhibit was developed in partnership with the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta and is on display through May 20, 24. For GPB News, I'm Devon Zwald.

Story 6:

Peter Biello: Home Depot narrowed its outlook for the year as sales continue to slide. But the Atlanta-based home improvement store topped Wall Street expectations for the quarter. Third quarter revenue fell 3% to more than $37 billion, but that still beat expectations.

Story 7:

Peter Biello: After a practice last month, about 20 members of a high school football team in Southeast Georgia were baptized. The video, posted on the North County football Facebook page, shows the young men one after the other, being dunked underwater.

Video clip: I baptize you In the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Peter Biello: The school system declined to talk to GPB about what happened, citing an ongoing investigation, but did say that coach Isaac Farrell won't be coach next year because of a separate incident which it describes as a personnel matter. Chris Line, an attorney with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, wants the school to stop this kind of behavior, which he calls religious coercion. And he's with me now. Thank you very much for speaking with me.

Chris Line: Yeah, no problem.

Peter Biello: The video posted to the official Tattnall County football page says coach Isaac Farrell, quote, "gave the guys the opportunity" to be baptized. You and your organization have called this religious coercion. Why? What makes it coercion?

Chris Line: The issue is that this is obviously taking place as a part of his official duties as a public school football coach. The only reason why he's able to give this opportunity and the only reason why they're gathered there is that they just had football practice. So this is a public school football coach with this public school football team at the practice field — and it sounds like it was immediately following practice; it was described to us as part of practice, which, you know, obviously it's hard to kind of distinguish that, but it clearly is within his capacity as a coach. And that's really what makes this very clearly unconstitutional.

Peter Biello: I want to get into a little more about why you think it's unconstitutional in a minute, but please do tell me a little more about the coercion. ... Why "coercion"?

Chris Line: Student athletes in particular, more even so than just students, are especially susceptible to coercion. You know, coaches control their playing time, positions, you know, which can then affect their ability to get college scholarships and be recruited if that's a road that these athletes want to go down. So if there's a team event going on, players are going to want to be a part of it. They can't really say no, even if they're not religious and they don't want to be a part of this. And even if they maybe didn't get baptized themselves, they might have felt pressured to at least stay for the event because this is a team event going on. You know, these players are being baptized. Clearly it's something that the coach wants. So anyone who's participating is going to be possibly seen in a favorable light for this coach.

Peter Biello: Can you tell us a little bit more about why it's unconstitutional? What's the legal precedent for that?

Chris Line: Basically, there's a long history of court cases that sort of set up the fact that student athletes have the First Amendment right to be free from religious indoctrination as a part of participating in a school athletic program. You know, there's a lot of cases which basically says that it's illegal for public school athletic coaches to invite or instruct others, such as pastors, to lead the team in prayer, religious activity, proselytizing, baptism. The Supreme Court has regularly and continuously struck down school-sponsored religious activities in public schools. The big case kind of connected to football took place in 2000. That was Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. Now, in that case, they found that even student-led prayer over the loudspeaker before football games was unconstitutional.

Peter Biello: And are you able to sue? Do you have standing? Or would you need one of the young men who was involved to bring a suit?

Chris Line: In order to bring a suit, we would need a parent of one of the students who is involved, the student themselves, something like that. For whatever reason, either students don't come forward to us or they're, like we said, there's this coercion thing. So we're already talking about the fact that a student doesn't feel comfortable not participating. Well, imagine the pressure and the backlash that there could be if one of these students not only voice their right to not have to engage in this kind of activity, but actually trying to take legal action against their coach and their school. We're always hopeful that — that someone will come forward and we can look into that. We're always reaching out and hoping that people will come forward so that we can help stop these incidences from happening.

Peter Biello: Chris Line is an attorney for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is objecting to what it's calling coerced baptisms of players on the Tatnall County High school football team. Chris, thank you very much for speaking with me.

Chris Line: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

Story 9:

Peter Biello: The Transportation Security Administration says it anticipates this holiday travel season will be the busiest ever. The TSA expects to screen 30 million passengers over the 12-day Thanksgiving holiday period that starts this Friday. The agency also said in a release yesterday it expects to break the single-day travel record of 2.9 million passengers, which was set June 30 this year.

Story 10:

Peter Biello: For the first time in more than 17 years, Andre 3000 is releasing an album of new music. New Blue Sun was announced today and set to be released this Friday, Nov. 17. According to NPR's Rodney Carmichael, the record is a stunning 87 minute mind bender, minimalist and experimental, tribal and transcendent. One thing it is not, however, is a rap record. No bars, no beats, no subbass. Andre doesn't sing on this album, either. What he does do is play flute along with other digital wind instruments. You can find Rodney Carmichael's interview with Andre 3000 at GPB.org.

And that is it for this edition of Georgia Today. If you want to learn more about any of these stories, head on over to our website, GPB.org/news. And if you haven't subscribed to this podcast yet, I highly recommend you do it now. We'll be back with you and your podcast feed tomorrow afternoon. And if you have feedback or a story idea, something we should know about, send us a note by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news