So, a school can refuse to allow religious-themed music during holiday performances but can't prohibit students from distributing Christian-themed pens shaped like candy canes.  The wall between church and state has become more like a picket fence, with a lot of pickets missing but with other sections electrified.  NoVES member Howie Kallem will try and make sense of it all.

Howie Kallem is a civil rights lawyer with the federal government.  He works primarily with educational issues, and has closely followed issues regarding freedom of speech and the separation of church and state at public schools, colleges, and universities.  He has been a long-time volunteer with Arlington Public Schools, currently serving as co-chair of the Advisory Committee on Elimination of the Achievement Gap.  It took him some 5 years and three law schools to get his law degree, but he did eventually graduate from the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University.  He has three daughters, all of whom went to Sunday School here at NoVES.  He likes to bake and takes personal responsibility for adding a few pounds to each of you by bringing in his killer brownies to platform time and again over the last 25 years..