CHANUTE, Kan. – Freedom From Religion Foundation spokesman Ryan Jayne thinks it’s “wonderful” the group’s legal threats successfully forced a small Kansas community to remove a Jesus picture from its local junior high.

“It’s nice to have people who appreciate the law and get things done (and) who follow the law even if it’s likely to be unpopular in the community,” he told The Wichita Eagle.

The new principal of the Chanute school district, Richard Proffitt, ordered the “Head of Christ” picture by Christian artist Warner Sallman removed from the wall at Royster Middle School Thursday after FFRF wrote in with legal threats.

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The national atheist group targets small school districts across the country that typically cannot afford the legal expenses tied to a protracted legal battle, and threatens legal action if schools don’t comply with its demands.

The organization was successful in forcing Proffitt’s previous school district, the Saline school district, to halt the free distribution of Bibles to students by Gideons International, so it makes sense Proffitt would again quickly obey FFRF attorneys.

Sallman’s portrait of Jesus has hung in the school’s hallway for several decades before a visitor took a picture of the portrait at a back-to-school open house and contacted FFRF directly, Proffitt said.

“We have conferred with legal counsel,” he told The Chanute Tribune. “To be in compliance with state and federal law, we must remove the picture.”

“It’s being stored in a place where it’s not visible,” Proffitt told the Eagle.

Proffitt said he didn’t notice the picture when he toured schools before taking the superintendent position this year, but he expects there will be a backlash from the deeply religious community over removing Jesus from the school.

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“I do know it’s been decades. Some people who went through the system before – 30 to 40 years ago – knew it was hanging in the hallway back then. It was kind of a permanent fixture, if you will,” he said.

“Any time you have a rural community (that is) strongly faith based, it will be an issue for many patrons,” he added.

The complaints are already coming in.

“Oh, man, it’s getting bad,” Royster alumna Erika Semey told the Eagle. “That’s what’s wrong with this world. Not enough people have Jesus in their lives.”

Fur trapper Cody Busby, 22, also attended Royster Middle School, and also opposes the decision to remove the portrait.

“Nobody else in the school seemed to be bothered by it,” he said. “There were only one or two evolution kids and they didn’t seem bothered by it.

“With all the bullying that goes on in schools and how all the kids divide up into cliques, I think Jesus being there didn’t hurt a thing.”

A FFRF prepared statement about the episode said the group previously joined with the ACLU to sue an Ohio school over the same Sallman portrait of Christ and ultimately won the case and a settlement in which the district agreed to remove the picture and pay $95,000 in legal fees.

FFRF’s Jayne told the Tribune the group receives a lot of complaints about allegedly religious symbols in public schools, which represented the vast majority of the more than 1,000 legal threats it sent out in 2014. He said FFRF is on pace to send out 1,200 threatening letters this year.