The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has heard arguments in a suit stemming from a Pennsylvania school district barring a student from passing out invitations to a birthday party that took place at her church.
Continue reading...A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has ruled that a Minnesota school district violated a religious group’s free speech rights when it engaged in impermissible viewpoint discrimination by removing the religious group as a participant in the district’s after-school enrichment program, resulting in irreparable harm to the religious group.
Continue reading...Ocala.com reports that the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida has filed suit against the Marion County School Board and Superintendent Jim Yancey, alleging officials at Vanguard High School rejected a proposal by two students to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at the school.
Continue reading...The Tulsa World reports that Owasso Kids for Christ (OKC), a Christian club that meets before classes at Northeast Elementary School, has dropped its federal lawsuit against Owasso Public Schools (OPS). The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) on behalf of OKC, charged that the school district’s materials distribution policy violated OKC’s constitutional rights because it discriminated against the club solely on the basis of its religious viewpoint.
Continue reading...A Pennsylvania federal district court has granted an elementary student’s motion for a preliminary injunction ordering a school district to allow the student to distribute flyers promoting religious events until the court decides the merits of the student’s First Amendment claim. Rejecting the school district’s argument that the student’s free speech claim should be to subject to forum analysis, the court applied the substantial disruption standard enunciated in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Comty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
Continue reading...A Bible club known as Owasso Kids for Christ (OKC), that meets prior to the school day at Northeast Elementary School, has filed suit against Owasso Public Schools (OPS) in federal district court, says the Tulsa World. The club alleges that the school district has engaged in “censorship” by denying Owasso Kids for Christ the same opportunities to distribute information that groups such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have.
Continue reading...The Deseret News reports that after initially denying Child Evangelism Fellowship of Santa Cruz County’s (CEF-SCC) request to distribute permission slips to students because the slips contained the word “Bible,” Pajaro Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) reversed course.
Continue reading...A federal district court in Minnesota has denied an outside religious organization’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would require a school district to grant it the additional benefits provided to participants in the after school program. A federal district court in Minnesota has denied an outside religious organization’s motion for a preliminary injunction that would require a school district to grant it the additional benefits provided to participants in the after school program. The court determined that the school district had created a limited designated public forum when it set up its after school program, which allowed it to restrict access to the forum provided the restrictions were reasonable and viewpoint neutral. The court also found it “likely that the District could demonstrate that [the organization’s] participation in the After-School Program violates the Establishment Clause.”
Continue reading...U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to school districts nationwide, says Education Week, warning school officials against taking steps to ban students from forming gay-straight alliances and similar support groups in their schools. “Officials need not endorse any particular student organization, but federal law requires that they afford all student groups the same opportunities to form, to convene on school grounds, and to have access to the same resources available to other student groups,” states the letter.
Continue reading...A federal district court in New Jersey has ruled that school district officials did not violate a teacher’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech when they disciplined him for placing personal correspondence in teachers’ internal mailboxes in contravention of the district’s materials distribution policy requiring teachers to obtain prior permission. The court concluded that the policy constituted a reasonable content-neutral time, place and manner restriction.
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