Arizona district sued over rules for student PA announcements
The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) announced that it was suing Deer Valley Unified School District after a Mountain Ridge High School student said she was told she couldn't use the school's PA system to invite students to the Common Cause Club's prayer meeting. The ADF said school officials prohibited the announcement because students wanted to say "prayer." District spokesperson Sandi Hicks said that is not true, and the school policy says the student groups can make announcements using the word prayer as long as they don't pray. She wouldn't comment on the specifics of the Mountain Ridge case. Jeremy Tedesco, ADF attorney, said his group believes “Christians are being treated differently than other student groups on campus solely because of the religious speech they want to engage in.” Hicks said that's not the case. “High-school student clubs, including faith-based, have equal access to campus media to announce their meetings,” she said. The district has a long history of honoring students' religious rights within a public school's constitutional limits, Hicks said, and partners with various faith-based organizations including the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Annual See You at the Pole Day, an annual event where Christian students meet at a school flagpole for prayer.
Source: Arizona Republic, 2/7/08, By Eugene Scott
[Editor’s Note: The legal complaint filed in the case is below.]
ADF complaint