Elementary School Violated 4th Grader's Speech Rights In Barring Religious Fliers

A New York federal district court last week held that the Liverpool Central School District in upstate New York violated a fourth-grader's First Amendment speech rights by refusing to permit her to hand out Christian religious fliers to her classmates during non-instructional times. In M.B. v. Liverpool Central School District, (ND NY, March 30, 2007), the court found that the fliers would not cause substantial disruption, and that the school's policy requiring advance approval of student handouts was unconstitutional because it had no objective criteria under which determinations would be made. An Associated Press story yesterday reported on the decision.