Plano School District Settles in Bible Club's Religious Freedom Lawsuit
by Allie Martin
April 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - - One pro-family attorney believes a recent settlement of a free-speech case involving a student-led club and a Texas public school district should serve as a wakeup call for public school officials nationwide. Earlier this week, trustees with the Plano (Texas) Independent School District (PISD) voted to change the district's policy and allow Bible study groups the same rights as other student-led organizations. The group, known as Students Witnessing Absolute Truth (SWAT) had filed a lawsuit after information about the club was removed from a middle school Internet site.
In the official ruling, the federal judge presiding said the issue at hand in the case was "the flagrant denial for equal access guaranteed to SWAT." He found that the harm done to the group "is irreparable because it inhibits the exercise of Plaintiff's First Amendment freedoms of speech and religion." The judge also granted the Christian club a preliminary injunction against the school district, placing a sanction against the district to cease its discrimination against the student-led religious group for the duration of the suit.
On Thursday, SWAT formally accepted an offer of settlement from PISD to resolve the federal lawsuit once and for all. Under the settlement agreement, the school district will allow the Christian club to post information on the school website and will extend to the group the same privileges granted to other non-curricular clubs.
Hiram Sasser is with Liberty Legal Institute, which filed the suit on the Christian students' behalf. He says the law is "very clear" in favor of the Bible clubs, and yet legal actions like SWAT's lawsuit continue to be necessary.
"There are plenty of school districts that just either don't get it or refuse to follow the law," Sasser explains, "and we have to go district by district enforcing the law. Just like it was with segregation, as some school districts held out from complying with the law, so do we have school districts that are refusing to end their religious discrimination."
The Liberty Legal Institute spokesman says PISD officials could easily have avoided a lawsuit in this case. "From the very beginning, they could have just simply changed their policy and done the right thing," he asserts. "Instead, they showed up to the courthouse and made really bogus arguments about why their discrimination is justified."
The court ordered PISD to pay $100 in damages to SWAT and its founder and to pay the plaintiff's attorney fees. Sasser says the court "could not have been clearer" in its decision, and he is pleased with the outcome of the case, which is actually the second religious-freedom lawsuit filed against the Plano school district.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
