• Washington school officials disciplined a girl for distributing Gospel tracts to students.
• Incident occurred on or about Feb. 18 in a Washington state public school.
• Attorneys demand the school allow the student to share her faith during non-instructional time.

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Attorneys representing a middle school student in Washington state say a school administrator reprimanded her for distributing Gospel tracts. 

The alleged incident occurred on or about Feb. 18 at a middle school in an unnamed Washington state public school district, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the girl, who is a minor.

In response to her handing out Gospel tracts, the school’s vice principal allegedly entered the classroom, removed the student and informed her that she was not permitted to distribute religious tracts at school. The student, who obtains the tracts in batches from the Gospel House Tract Society and distributes them during breaks and lunch while asking for consent first, reportedly responded by asking why other students are allowed to express their viewpoints while she is not.

According to the ACLJ's account in a March 20 demand letter, the vice principal replied: "Students may share opinions, but they may not share religious beliefs."

Attorneys say the vice principal then cited the school's practice of allowing students to leave campus during school hours to participate in protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an example of permissible expression, while maintaining that the distribution of religious literature is not permitted.

During the same encounter, attorneys say the student asked whether she could start a Christian student club but was told by the vice principal that the club would be required to have a teacher sponsor — a statement the ACLJ says “misrepresents the applicable legal and policy framework.”

“The prohibition against the mere discussion of God or the giving of an item displaying a religious reference to a friend and classmate blatantly interferes with [her] First Amendment rights as a student,” wrote ACLJ attorneys Nathan Moelker and Christina Compagnone. 

In the demand letter, the attorneys cited longstanding Supreme Court precedent, including Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), in which the Court held that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Religious speech, said Moelker and Compagnone, is protected and cannot be subjected to disparate treatment compared to secular or political speech.

“The school has opened a forum for student expression during non-instructional time and has selectively excluded a religious viewpoint from that forum,” the attorneys wrote. “The First Amendment precludes any government effort to single out and censor or otherwise burden the speech of private parties solely because that speech is religious.”

According to the ACLJ, this is not the first issue involving the student and the district. In 2019, when the student was a second grader at an elementary school in the same district, officials conducted daily backpack searches at the school entrance to confiscate Christian tracts, treating them as contraband.

The ACLJ intervened at that time, sending a demand letter that led to a formal written agreement in 2022, signed by a district official. The agreement affirmed the government's neutrality toward religion, avoidance of discrimination against religious viewpoints, and the student's right to distribute materials at school, including religious materials.

The ACLJ asserts that the current actions breach that prior agreement and is demanding a written response by Friday that gives the student permission to share her faith and distribute tracts to willing classmates during non-instructional time without further interference, as well as allowing her to form and operate a Christian student club on the same terms and conditions as other student groups.

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/school-officials-reprimanded-girl-for-handing-out-gospel-tracts.html