Preliminary Injunction Permits School Posters Advertising See You At The Pole

In Gold v. Wilson County School Board of Education, (MD TN, May 1, 2009), a Tennessee federal district court judge issued a preliminary injunction barring Wilson County (TN)'s Lakeview Elementary School from enforcing a broadly written school speech policy to suppress religious references on posters made by students and parents to publicize "See You At the Pole" and National Day of Prayer events at the school. (See prior related posting.) In a previous lawsuit, a court found that Lakeview administrators and some of its teachers had violated the Establishment Clause by their involvement with the "Praying Parents" group at the school. (See prior posting.) Now, however, the court essentially concluded that school officials had over-reacted to that earlier decision.

Finding that the school had created a limited public forum in the school's lobby and hallway for community, educational, charitable, recreational, and similar groups to advertise events of interest to students, the court concluded:

Requiring the Plaintiffs to cover all religious speech on the posters under the guise of a reasonable time, place and manner restriction reflects a misunderstanding of law, with the result that the Defendants stifled religious speech, while the restrictions imposed to stifle the speech were neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral....

The posters invite students and parents to attend the event advertised. By its name, it has a religious connotation, but no one is forced to attend or to engage in a religious exercise; no one is made to read the Bible or pray, and no one is bound to sit in attendance while other students or parents pray. No one is required to accept a religious tract or flyer advertising a religious event, pay attention to a poster, or listen to a religious message.... Mere receipt of an invitation to a religious activity does not rise to the level of support for, or participation in, religion or its exercise to create an Establishment Clause problem.

Today's Tennessean reports on the decision, as does a release from Alliance Defense Fund.