ADF Releases Booklet on Students' Religious Speech Rights on Campus

ADF Releases Booklet on Students' Religious Speech Rights on Campus

By Jim Brown
November 30, 2006

(AgapePress) - The Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has released a new free-speech guide for Christian students in public schools. The 32-page booklet titled "Knowing Your Rights" is designed to help students counter censorship of their First Amendment rights on public school campuses.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman says young people need to know how to respond when they find themselves unconstitutionally silenced by teachers or other school officials, as happens all too often in schools throughout the United States.

"Christian and pro-life and pro-family students are often treated as second-class students and in some cases treated as criminals," Bowman asserts. "The 'Knowing Your Rights' booklet will help students understand their rights to be treated equally, to speak, to proclaim the gospel to their peers and their fellow students," he says.

For years, the ADF representative points out, many U.S. public schools have given in to pressure from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and their allies, opponents that have used fear, disinformation, and even intimidation tactics to bully school officials into silencing students' free speech -- particularly those whose viewpoints are based on traditional Christian or conservative pro-life or pro-family values.

"School officials sometimes have an allergic reaction to any Christian activity going on at school, even if it's student-initiated," Bowman contends. "But students have the right to establish Christian and conservative clubs to the same extent as any other group, and they cannot be discriminated against based on their viewpoint."

Also, the pro-family lawyer emphasizes, students have the constitutional right under the First Amendment to speak out and express their viewpoint, provided they do so "in between classes and before and after school" and "without disrupting school."

Nevertheless, Bowman observes that many U.S. school officials are either unaware of these student rights or choose to disregard them. Only recently, he notes, he sent a letter to officials at a Virginia high school, demanding that the administration reverse its decision to bar a student from wearing pro-life clothing and passing out flyers with information about abortion.

According to ADF president, CEO, and general counsel Alan Sears, it is the legal alliance's hope that the "Knowing Your Rights" booklet will serve as a valuable tool to equip Christians students and school administrators with the truth regarding the law and religious expression on school campuses.

Sears says both public school students and school administrators alike need to be aware that "Christian students do not abandon their rights at the schoolhouse gate."

Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

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