Court Says Redacted Holiday Card Form Violated Free Speech

In Pounds v. Katy Independent School District, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77175 (SD TX, July 30, 2010), a Texas federal district court granted a motion to reconsider its earlier decision involving a First Amendment challenge to a holiday card fundraising project at a Texas elementary school. The project permitted parents to order Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa cards featuring their child's artwork and containing one of a number of pre-set greetings. In sending home the order form supplied by an outside company, the school blacked out one message choice-- a religious quotations from the New Testament. The court held that the school's admitted viewpoint discrimination violated parents' First Amendment free speech rights and was not justified by an attempt to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. It concluded that use of the "unredacted [order] form could not fairly have been characterized as a government endorsement of any of the messages." (See prior related posting.)