I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
A parent is suing Holly Area Schools after her son was prevented from handing out fliers to schoolmates inviting them to a Christian youth summer camp. The parent is Katharine Smith but her son is being identified only by the initials J.S., as is allowed by federal law. you can see a copy of the complaint here (PDF).
The complaint, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, a prominent Christian legal group, alleges that the school allows students and community groups to hand out printed material on any number of other things — birthday parties, 4-H club, Girl Scouts, etc — but told the plaintiff that he could not hand out the invitations to a church camp because anything that comes from a church can’t be distributed at school.
The complaint includes the text of an email from Kent Barnes, the superintendent of the school district, which said:
“Distributing religious invitations/materials/explanations within the elementary school day is not appropriate. I contacted our legal firm as well to ensure my understanding is correct, and they agreed. It is not a matter of whether your child is standing or sitting in the classroom, hallway, or cafeteria. Simply stated, your request for your child to distribute religious materials/invitations to the classmates cannot be implemented.”
The school is getting poor legal advice. Innumerable federal court cases have established the principle that if a school allows students or community groups to hand out literature at the school, religious and non-religious literature must be treated in precisely the same manner. That means they cannot allow one student to hand out invitations to, say, a soccer camp, to his classmates in the hallway but require another student to only leave fliers for a religious camp in the office where others could pick it up.
The U.S. Department of Education, in a set of guidelines on religious liberty sent to all public schools in the country (quoted by the First Amendment Center), says:
“Students have a right to distribute religious literature to their schoolmates on the same terms as they are permitted to distribute other literature that is unrelated to school curriculum or activities. Schools may impose the same reasonable time, place, and manner or other constitutional restrictions on distribution of religious literature as they do on nonschool literature generally, but they may not single out religious literature for special regulation.”
If the school does not change its position, this case is unlikely to go past a motion for summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter