Giveaway racks get religious

Can you turn away religious groups from using your giveaway racks, bulletin boards and access to your meeting rooms? Seems less and less likely. Here's a good summary of two federal appellate cases this summer where religious groups prevailed in school cases.

Charles C. Haynes, Legal trends favor allowing religious fliers in public schools, First Amendment Center, August 22, 2004

What about libraries? Well libraries (with public funds) have less discretion than public schools when setting policies that restrict speech.

From Haynes' article:

In the first case, principals at two elementary schools in Montgomery County, Md., refused to include fliers from the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in the informational packet the schools sent home with kids. Other community groups were included in the packet, including a few from religiously affiliated organizations. But CEF was barred because of a district policy prohibiting distribution of fliers involving “proselytizing” or “evangelical groups.”

The school district won round one in a federal district court. But on June 30, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court, ruling that giving an evangelical group access to the packet would not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

Unlike the Maryland schools, a district in rural Ohio was more than willing to distribute fliers from religious groups – along with materials from other community organizations that work with youth. Once again, a U.S. district judge struck down the practice as unconstitutional.

But last week the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that elementary schools may constitutionally place fliers advertising religious activities in student mailboxes.

Although these two decisions don’t cover the entire nation (and the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in), the trend seems clear: Courts are upholding the constitutionality of distributing fliers from religious groups when the school disseminates literature from a variety of community organizations announcing events for students.