Within a month of receiving a challenge from Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State, school officials had a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and two portraits of Jesus moved into storage.
The pictures hung at least 50 years above the entrance of the southern Illinois junior high school.
"We felt the community wanted those pictures to be there," Superintendent Bob O'Dell said of the reason why school officials allowed the pictures to remain despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings that such pictures violate the separation of church and state.
"Our legal counsel advised us we didn't have a choice," O'Dell told the Southern Illinoisan, a Carbondale, Ill., newspaper, of the school's decision to avoid a losing legal battle.
O'Dell said the pictures may be donated to other organizations.
