St. Paul schools sued over religious flier ban

[fgoodwin]

St. Paul schools sued over religious flier ban

 

http://www.wctrib.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8OF4OO80

 

The Associated Press - Thursday, April 12, 2007

 

ST. PAUL

 

An evangelical group has sued St. Paul schools to overturn its ban on religious fliers, contending that the First Amendment gives it the same right as Boy Scout troops and Little League teams that distribute recruitment material at schools.

 

While administrators acknowledge the district's ban on materials of a sectarian nature, a school lawyer said the district's opposition to the St. Paul Area Evangelicals' flier is that it asks parents to take their children out of class each week.

 

The evangelical group runs Crossroads Ministries, which for 50 years has offered Bible classes to students. It relies on a Minnesota law that allows parents to release their children from school up to three hours a week for religious education.

 

Some schools in the district had allowed distribution in past years, according to the lawsuit, but the district now restricts access completely.

 

"St. Paul School District has chosen to allow nonschool groups to distribute information to parents announcing activities and other opportunities for students," said Jordan Lorence, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian civil rights group that's representing the churches. "Once St. Paul Schools opens up that means of flier distribution, the First Amendment requires them not to discriminate against religious groups and religious speech."

 

Lorence said if the district has a problem allowing students to use in-school time for religious education, it should take up the issue with the state Legislature.

 

Jeff Lalla, attorney for the school district, said groups like the Boy Scouts or sports leagues are allowed to advertise on school grounds because their programs aren't held during school hours.

 

Just because state law allows students to miss school for religious instruction programs, "that doesn't mean we have to advertise that they're available," Lalla said.

 

A 2001 district policy stated that administrators can't use staff or school property "to assist in the distribution of religious release time information to students."

 

But First Amendment experts said the district could face problems if it's trying to limit what's distributed on school grounds based on content.

 

"If they are letting virtually everyone else who has programs for kids have access, there's a pretty good argument this is a designated forum and they can't discriminate against the religious group based on the content of the speech," said Teresa Nelson, legal counsel for Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

[epalmer84]

Guess they need to change the school district name.

 

Ed

[nldscout]

Whats going to happen is the will end up banning all groups.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

That could happen; the Salt Lake City school district banned all student clubs for about four years trying to keep a gay-straight alliance out.

[Beavah]

Whats going to happen is the will end up banning all groups.

 

Could be, but it's really hard to pull that off in a way a competent attorney can't blow holes in if someone wants to challenge it.

 

What is for sure is that the school district will settle or lose this case. Can you imagine the argument "we banned this group because their flyers mentioned parents' statutory rights." Rights which the district should have been educatin' parents about in the first place?

 

 

[Aquila calva]

Sounds like the ACLU is taking the side of the RELIGIOUS GROUP

 

HMMMMMM

 

opps, caps lock got stuck

[Lisabob]

This has happened recently in two schools in my area. One school banned all fliers including BSA/Cub recruiting material, purportedly to keep racist groups and extremist religious groups out (both have a presence in the area, unfortunately). The other school tried, for the first time this year, to ban only Cub Roundup material. When pushed on the legal issue, they backed down, but there is a real concern that they'll go for a total ban in the future.

 

In the first case, this is a major blow to us because the way that community's public schools are set up, all kindergarten students attend the same building - so doing spring Tiger recruiting just got A LOT more difficult. Actually we've been trying to come up with alternative, cost-effective, ways to reach the K population. It is a big community, and hard to come up with a good alternative that we can afford.

[Beavah]

In the first case, this is a major blow to us because the way that community's public schools are set up, all kindergarten students attend the same building - so doing spring Tiger recruiting just got A LOT more difficult. Actually we've been trying to come up with alternative, cost-effective, ways to reach the K population. It is a big community, and hard to come up with a good alternative that we can afford.

 

Yah, Lisa'bob, your council should consider joining with other groups in the area and droppin' a dime on this. Either with their own challenge or with a complaint to the federal civil rights office.

 

Fact is, I've never seen a district anywhere that's been able to pull off the "no fliers" thing. That means no fliers for anything - no college brochures, no information on soccer, or summer camps. Most PTO's are separately incorporated and so they're an outside agency too, so no PTO flyers or event information.

 

It's a winnable complaint if yeh want to push it. Only the people in the area can decide whether that's the best approach or not.

 

Beavah

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah writes:

Yah, Lisa'bob, your council should consider joining with other groups in the area and droppin' a dime on this. Either with their own challenge or with a complaint to the federal civil rights office.

 

The civil rights office will say that public schools aren't required to create a limited public forum.

[Beavah]

The civil rights office will say that public schools aren't required to create a limited public forum.

 

Yah, well, start by collectin' info on all the other groups (PTO's, summer sports camps, etc. etc.) that they do allow "on campus." Then make the call. Or file yourself, eh?

 

At least go to a school board meeting and be heard on the matter. You pay for those schools, eh? If they want the public to keep votin' millages, then they'd best be a responsive, open public resource.

 

Beavah

 

[fgoodwin]

Aquila calva wrote:Sounds like the ACLU is taking the side of the RELIGIOUS GROUPNot sure what you mean by "taking the side of the RELIGIOUS GROUP".

 

The article quotes a local ACLU spokesperson commenting on possible First Amendment issues related to the case. The article doesn't say that ACLU is legally representing the evangelical group.

 

So, while the ACLU may agree that Crossroads Ministries' free speech rights are being infringed (in fact, the spokesperson didn't go that far), the ACLU hasn't gone so far as to represent Crosroads.

[Hunt]

"Whats going to happen is the will end up banning all groups."

 

That's what happened in our school system, when they wanted to exclude fliers from an evangelical group. First they banned fliers from everyone except school groups and sports leagues, and then they banned all fliers except from the school itself (even banning fliers from the PTA). Now they've reached a compromise in which all groups (presumably including the evangelistic group) can send home fliers four times a year. It really is pretty much an all-or-nothing thing--the school doesn't have to create the forum for speech, but when it does, it can't discriminate based on the content of the speech.

 

[Trevorum]

Sounds like a fair compromise. But I'm wondering what they would do if a skinhead group wanted to send fliers...

 

Are the four times per year pre-established by the schools, or can they be taken at the convenience of the group?