School officials in a Virginia district have decided that students are not allowed to post copies of the Ten Commandments on their lockers, even though they are allowed to have other types of messages, including "expressions of school spirit, support of activities, birthday well wishes, social causes, and so on." The result was that last week when members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes posted copies of the Ten Commandments on their lockers, the principal and an assistant pulled them down immediately.
That, according to officials with Liberty Counsel, reveals a policy that would have to fail because "it would preclude student expression that is religious because it is religious." Liberty Counsel dispatched a letter suggesting – strongly – that the policy and practice be changed.
"While the school district may have certain constraints about how it could display the Ten Commandments as government speech, those do not apply to forums that the school has opened to private speech of students," said the letter, signed by Mary McAlister on behalf of Liberty Counsel, to the district. It was sent to officials in the Floyd County, Va., public school district, who could not be reached today by WND with requests for a comment.
The Liberty Counsel letter set a deadline of March 15 for the school to respond.
Liberty Counsel wrote to the school on behalf of Ralph and Tambra Agee, whose son, Jacob, is a student at Floyd County High School.
The situation developed when the FCA athletes put up the Ten Commandments on their lockers, as other students posted other messages on theirs.
But Principal Barry Hollandsworth and an assistant, Tony Deibler, took them down.
"Jacob then met with Principal Hollandsworth who explained that he could not permit students to use the face of their lockers for religious expression because if he did, students of all religions could use their lockers for religious expressions of their respective religions," the letter said.
"Today, school officials have also suggested that prior approval is necessary for student expressions on their assigned lockers."
The legal team said, "If there was a prior approval policy, it could very well be an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech because it requires advance approval. It would certainly be unconstitutional if it subjected religion expression to a less favorable standard than non-religious speech … The actual policy articulated by Principal Hollandsworth would fail to satisfy constitutional requirements because it would preclude student expression that is religious because it is religious."
Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, told WND that even the left-leaning ACLU agreed with the Liberty Counsel position, dispatching a similar letter to school officials after LC sent its request.
Read more: Ten Commandments targeted for banishment http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=269493#ixzz1FJXd6Ak6
