A Texas state court judge has ruled that high school cheerleaders in Kountze, TX can display banners that feature Bible verses at football games, but left the door open a crack as to whether the local school district can exert editorial control.
The controversy emerged last fall when the Freedom from Religion Foundation complained to Kountze Independent School District Superintendent Kevin Weldon that cheerleaders were making and displaying banners that players run through at the beginning of games, which contained religious messages. This, it claimed , violated the First Amendment Establishment Clause, which bars government, or publicly funded school districts, from establishing or endorsing a religion.
In response, Weldon placed a district-wide ban on the religious banners, telling the media: “I called our legal counsel and they recommended to me that we instruct all administrators in the district that religious signs or messages would no longer be permitted at school district events and that student groups and their sponsors were to be notified of the prohibition effective immediately.”
Shortly thereafter, Beaumont attorney David Starnes and the Liberty Institute, on behalf of the cheerleaders, pursued and were granted a temporary restraining order that allowed cheerleaders, students and fans alike to continue their display of religious banners at sporting events.
Part of their argument centered on the claim that the cheerleaders were acting as individuals, since the squad came up with the idea on their own, bought the supplies with their own money and made the banners off campus.
After considering the merits of the claim, State District Judge Steven Thomas granted summary judgment to the cheerleaders. “The evidence in this case confirms that religious messages expressed on run-through banners have not created, and will not create, and establishment of religion in the Kountze community,” he wrote.
Specifically, he found that the Establishment Clause does not prohibit the use of such religious-themed banners at school sporting events. However, he also held that the school district still has editorial control over banners, since the banner is considered district speech, not that of the students.
Prominent state officials, including Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, hailed the ruling as a victory. Abbott called it a “victory for religious liberties and for high school cheerleaders who stood up to powerful forces that tried to silence their voices.” Perry said in a statement that the cheerleaders “showed great resolve and maturity beyond their years in standing up for their beliefs and constitutional rights.”
Meanwhile, the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, was disappointed with the ruling, claiming that the banners “carry the appearance of school endorsement and favoritism, turning Christians into insiders and non-Christians and nonbelievers into outsiders.”
Central to any appeal will be recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court in Santa Fe ISD v. Doe, which prohibited student-led prayers over the loudspeakers at football games, after finding that the district’s policy amounted to government endorsement of religion, a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
An Expert’s Take: “This boils down to whether this is government speech or private speech,” said Paul Batista, a sports law professor and director of the sports management program at Texas A & M University, a frequent speaker on the topic.
Batista added that he doesn’t believe the school district will appeal, as it is “fine with it ending right here.”
View the full opinion: https://www.libertyinstitute.org/document.doc?id=79
