Syracuse, USA - An upstate New York school district violated a fourth-grader's constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute "personal statement" fliers because they carried a religious message, a district judge ruled.
In a 46-page decision issued Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue found that the Liverpool Central School District based its restrictions on "undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance, which is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression."
Mordue ruled the district's literature distribution policy unconstitutional.
"Religious speech is constitutionally protected, even in the public schools," said Mat Staver, an attorney and executive director of Liberty Counsel, the Orlando, Fla.-based conservative legal group that represented Michaela Bloodgood and her mother, Nicole,
"School officials had no right to silence Michaela's personal Christian testimony," Staver said Monday.
Liverpool school district lawyer Frank Miller said the school district was examining the decision and "reviewing its options."
Nicole Bloodgood said Mordue's decision vindicated her daughter and set a strong precedent for protecting students' free speech rights.
"It's taken 2{ years to get justice ... but our prayers were answered," Bloodgood said.
According to a 2004 lawsuit, Nicole Bloodgood tried three times tried to obtain permission from school district officials so that Michaela could pass out a homemade "personal statement" flier to other students at Nate Perry Elementary School, but was denied each time. The last time was in September 2004.
The flier, about the size of a greeting card, started out: "Hi! My name is Michaela and I would like to tell you about my life and how Jesus Christ gave me a new one." The flier then mentions five ways in which Jesus had come into her life.
Staver said Michaela, now a sixth-grader, did not intend to distribute her flier during class time. Bloodgood's requests to school officials said her daughter would hand them out only during "non-instructional time," such as on the bus, before school, lunch, recess and after school. "Times when students are free to talk to each other about any topic, including religion, draw pictures, pass notes, and do school work," the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also noted that Michaela had received literature from other students at school, including literature concerning a YMCA basketball camp, Syracuse Children's Theater promotion of the show "Dragon Slayers" and the Camp Fire USA's summer camps.
Liverpool officials said Michaela could not distribute the flier because it was religious and that there was "a substantial probability" that other parents and students might misunderstand and presume the district endorsed the religious statements in the flier, according to the lawsuit.
"The court cannot say the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement of religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward religion as a result of the district's denial ... ," Mordue wrote.
School administrators also said the fliers were potentially divisive and might result in increased litter.