Discrimination Against Student Speech
We have put a legal team on a new case out of
A church youth group is working on a teen drama production that will take place at the church in early January 2009. Many of the youth members in the production are leaders and members of their Bible clubs at two local high schools. They wanted to have the Bible clubs support the production by putting up posters at the schools like other student groups do.
After putting up the posters, however, the principals removed them and said that it was illegal to advertise events held at a church. One principal refused to give the posters back and said that the students would have to ask the school board for permission at an upcoming meeting, although the meeting would be held weeks after the production is over.
Legal letters are being drafted today and will be sent to the school districts. The letters will explain that the Equal Access Act and the First Amendment guarantee the right of student Bible clubs to receive the same benefits provided to other student groups, including equal access to facilities, announcements, bulletin boards, and yearbook pictures. In the Board of Education v. Mergens case that we won at the Supreme Court, the Court noted that secondary school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a nondiscriminatory basis. The proposition that schools do not endorse everything they fail to censor is not complicated. 496
We will update you as this case progresses.