Senators side with cheerleaders in school speech fight

Several heavyweights have sided with the cheerleaders who are fighting a Texas school district for the right to choose the message on the banners they prepare for their hometown team's football games.

You know, those paper banners that cheerleaders hold up at the edge of the field, and their team then runs through, breaking the banner and prompting cheers from the hometown crowd.

It seems the activity had been going on for years in Kountze, Texas. Then several years ago, the cheerleaders – who, by the way, paid for the materials and did the banners on their own time – chose a couple of Bible verses.

Instantly, the Freedom From Religion Foundation raised a hue and cry, and the district said no more verses. A legal case developed, and the district said it would allow this group of cheerleaders and its messages, but it still would retain control over the messages, leaving no one really knowing what could happen.

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It's still in the courts these years later, and now officials with the Liberty Institute, which is working on behalf of the cheerleaders, revealed this week that two U.S. senators have chimed in on behalf of free speech.

Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, however, are more than ordinary senators. Cornyn is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, and before joining the Senate, was a district judge, a member of the Supreme Court of Texas and attorney general of Texas.

Ever wonder about today's schools? Wonder no longer. Detail of what is happening are here in "Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."

In fact, he argued on behalf of the state of Texas in the Santa Fe Independent School District case that is being cited by the school district for its right to censor student messages.

Cruz, meanwhile, previously was solicitor general of Texas, where he represented the state in a number of religious liberty cases.

Their amicus brief, posted on the Liberty site, explains briefly the background: The cheerleaders made "run-through" banners for their team, designing and making them on personal time and using private funds.

The content always has been chosen by the students.

Then in 2012, the Bible verses were selected and used until the district called a halt. A lawsuit brought court relief for that year, and the district changed its policy to allow religious messages.

But in that statement, the district claimed "for the first time" that the messages were its own "government speech."

The senators' brief explains, "Under the United States Supreme Court's government-speech jurisprudence the answer is straightforward: messages created solely by student cheerleaders do not become government speech simply because aspects of cheerleaders' activities are regulated by the school. … The speech belongs to the cheerleaders, and it is entitled to First Amendment protection."

They continued, explaining, "The undisputed facts of this case establish that the messages written on the banners and displayed at the football games were the cheerleaders' words, not the schools.' KISD makes no claim that the cheerleaders were required or encouraged in any way to include religion messages on the banners. … There is no school policy or rule that, in actuality or effect, even suggested, much less required, the placement of religious messages on the banners."

Liberty Institute said the case now is under consideration by the Texas Supreme Court.

When the cheerleaders rejected their school district's attempt to claim ownership of their speech, their Facebook page exploded, now with more than 37,000 "likes," Liberty said.

The cheerleaders won the initial battle at the trial court in 2013, and the school district appealed that decision, claiming that the cheerleaders’ banners are government speech – and, therefore, subject to censorship and prohibition at the school’s discretion. The ACLU then joined the district, filing a brief on their side on appeal.

"We applaud Senators Cornyn and Cruz for their support of the Kountze cheerleaders," Liberty Institute President and CEO Kelly Shackelford stated. "Their amicus brief, along with the amicus brief filed by the Texas attorney general in September, highlights the importance of this battle for students' religious freedoms."

WND had reported earlier in 2015 when the cheerleaders explained their fight was over the different of stating a message with oversight and permission – and the right to state a message.

"The religious messages the cheerleaders choose to display on their banners is plainly the private speech of the cheerleaders and deserves protection," Hiram Sasser, director of Litigation for Liberty Institute, said at the time.

Ever wonder about today's schools? Wonder no longer. Detail of what is happening are here in "Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."