A group of Kansas middle school students are suing their school administration for violating their First Amendment rights by preventing them from distributing flyers publicizing a prayer event. The administration said district policy forbids distributing religious information disruptive of the school environment. (The Kansas City Star, December 2, 2013, by the Associated Press)
An Arizona group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed the lawsuit for the students, contending that the public schools should encourage dissemination of ideas and should not exclude religious speech. The district said they allowed the students to announce the prayer event on the school’s public address system. (The Blaze, December 3, 2013, by Billy Hallowell)
When a counselor confronted the student distributing the flyers, he told her that the flyers were illegal under the Constitutional separation of church and state. The Alliance Defending Freedom said the school was out of line in discriminating against speech based on viewpoint. (Fox 4kc, December 3, 2013, by Sarah J. Clark and Melissa Stern)