Honolulu Employee's Free-Speech Suit Prompts City Policy Change

by Allie Martin
May 13, 2004

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(AgapePress) - The city of Honolulu, Hawaii, has issued new guidelines allowing for greater religious expression among its employees. The new directives were drafted after a maintenance worker sued the city for its alleged attempt to abridge his First Amendment rights.

Several years ago, Kelly Jenkins, a maintenance worker for the City of Honolulu, was prohibited by supervisors from placing religious literature in common areas at work and on an employee bulletin board. Jenkins contacted the Rutherford Institute, which filed suit in a U.S. district court on his behalf.

But now, Rutherford Institute lawyer Michael Mattox says, Honolulu officials have approved new guidelines protecting religious expression in the workplace. He says the revised policy protects the constitutional rights of all the city's employees.

Mattox says the company has "affirmed that individuals have the right to post things relating to their faith or religious beliefs to the same extent that everyone else does," and are free to "post things that are personal to them or important to them."

The attorney says many supervisors around the U.S. are confused about the alleged separation of Church and State. "They know that it's floating around there," he says, "but if they don't have enough training or specific guidance on how to deal with things, the general default or fallback position is just to say, 'Well, we'd better avoid allowing anyone to do anything religious because we're a public employer.'"

But Mattox says that is an incorrect understanding of the law, and prohibiting such religious expression is "not only not required by the Establishment Clause, it's forbidden by the First Amendment and Title 7."

Both Jenkins and the City of Honolulu have agreed to dismiss the lawsuit.