WALES, Wis. -- A public school district has agreed to let a student hand out religious cards to classmates in school as long as they meet certain criteria.
The Kettle Moraine School Board agreed Tuesday to publicly apologize to elementary school student Morgan Nyman. The board also passed policy revisions to clarify what types of material students may distribute and how students may express their religious beliefs during school hours.
The lawsuit was in response to the district's refusal to allow the second-grader to hand out Christian valentines and its decision to make her take back religious material she passed out at Halloween.
The school district said at the time that allowing Morgan to pass out material with such messages as "Jesus loves you" and "Freely rely on God" would violate the separation of church and state.
The agreement, if approved by U.S. District Court, would settle a lawsuit filed by a conservative religious liberty organization on behalf of the girl.
In response to the suit, the district will now forbid students from disseminating material that is obscene, lewd, pornographic, defamatory, insulting, libelous, commercial or "contrary to the mission of the school."
Elementary school students also cannot be exposed to literature that seeks "to market, solicit money, recruit, indoctrinate or convert," according to the policy.
"I believe it represents a message that other school boards should follow, and that is to create policies that give guidelines for both school administrators and for students regarding their constitutional rights," said Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, the Florida-based group that sued the school.
The district apologized to Morgan in a statement printed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. School Board President Michael Wagner said the statement did not admit school officials were wrong.