Robert K. Skolrood, a lawyer and leader of a conservative legal organization who was involved in several prominent church-state cases involving education, died Feb. 20 at age 79, reportedly of kidney cancer.
In 1987, Mr. Skolrood’s group, the National Legal Foundation, was behind a lawsuit that resulted in a federal judge ordering 44 textbooks removed from Alabama schools because they promoted secular humanism, which he deemed to be a “religious belief system.” The ruling was overturned on appeal.
Mr. Skolrood’s group later backed a lawsuit by an Omaha student who challenged her high school’s refusal to recognize a student Bible club. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that schools accepting federal aid must treat student religious clubs on the same basis as other noncurricular clubs.
