A middle school vice principal in the state of Washington pulled a student out of her math class in February and told her that she was not permitted to distribute Gospel tracts at school.
The student, having faced similar pushback when she was in second grade in the same school district, asked a perceptive question: Why were other students allowed to express their viewpoints but she was not? The vice principal replied that students may share opinions but not religious beliefs.
That distinction is constitutionally impermissible, says a demand letter sent to the school district by attorneys with the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) on the student’s behalf.
During the conversation with the student, the vice principal said it was permissible for the school to allow students to leave campus during school hours to participate in anti-ICE protests, but she maintained that the student’s distribution of religious literature was not permitted.
“The District’s own officials have articulated a policy of viewpoint discrimination with unusual candor,” the ACLJ’s letter states. “The school has opened a forum for student expression during non-instructional time and has selectively excluded a religious viewpoint from that forum.”
The letter goes on to explain that the First Amendment and U.S. Supreme Court rulings preclude such discrimination against a particular viewpoint.
Back in elementary school, over a two-month period, the student was sent to the principal’s office at least 10 times for witnessing to classmates on the playground. In addition, school officials began stopping her at the school’s entrance every morning to inspect her backpack and remove any Christian tracts.
The ACLJ sent a demand letter and obtained a signed agreement with the school district that the student could continue to share her faith at school without threat of punishment.
But now, with the district going back on that promise, ACLJ has given school officials a deadline of March 27 to affirm in writing that they “will comply with the requirements of the First Amendment, by permitting [the student] to distribute her religious tracts to her classmates and discuss her faith during non-instructional time, without further interference from school officials.”
