“Public schools should
encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” said Legal Counsel Matt
Sharp. “The law on this is extremely clear: school policies cannot target
religious speech for exclusion. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech
for all students, regardless of their religious or political beliefs.”
In September, a
seventh-grade student at Robert E. Clark Middle School posted fliers with Bible
verses in advance of the “See You at the Pole” event, a day when students
across the nation gather around the flagpole at their local school before the
beginning of the school day to pray for the school, students, staff and the
nation. The fliers were a precursor to additional fliers providing the date and
time of the “See You at the Pole” event that the student intended to distribute
later.
A school counselor
confronted the student at a school dance in front of her friends and informed
her that the fliers were “illegal” because of the Bible verses and could not be
posted or distributed at school. A district wide policy bans the distribution
of “religious materials…on school grounds or in any attendance facility before,
during, or after the school day or a school activity.”
School officials took
down and destroyed the fliers. Because of the threat of punishment from the
school counselor, the student could only secretly distribute a few
informational fliers with the time and place of the event to other students out
of sight of teachers. As a result, very few students attended the event.
The school has allowed
the posting of a variety of materials, including a hand-made poster of a
tombstone with the words “RIP” and a poster of rap artist Lil’ Wayne with the
words “Good Kush and Alcohol.”
The Alliance Defending
Freedom lawsuit, K.R. v. Unified School
District No. 204, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of
Kansas, explains, “Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the
schoolhouse gate. Non-disruptive, private student expression is protected by
the First Amendment.” Moreover, “the government may not discriminate against
speech based on its viewpoint, regardless of the forum.”
The lawsuit also notes
that the student’s posting of the material did not “interfere with the orderly
conduct of educational activity within the school.”
“Marginalizing students
of faith removes an important influence for good from the school community,”
added Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco, a former guest on Faith on Trial.
“We hope the school district will revise its policy so that students can
exercise their constitutionally protected freedoms.”
No comments:
Post a Comment