Matthews v. Kountze ISD Case

School District Bans Cheerleaders’ Bible Banners

In 2012, high school and middle school cheerleaders in Kountze, TX wanted to encourage their fellow students with positive messages on their cheer signs. The cheerleaders used their own money to buy supplies and create run-through banners featuring Bible verses for school football games.

However, after receiving a complaint letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Kountze ISD superintendent decided to ban the religious banners. The cheerleaders, supported by their parents and the community, made the bold decision to fight for their free speech and religious liberty rights.

First Liberty Legal Action

On September 24, 2012, First Liberty Institute, along with Beaumont attorney David Starnes, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Kountze cheerleaders and their parents and sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prohibit government school officials from censoring religious speech of the cheerleaders.

The judge granted the TRO, allowing the cheerleaders to continue encouraging their football team, the other team and fans with their Bible verse banners through the remainder of the 2012 football season.

After an intense legal battle that included numerous hearings and long days of depositions in which the cheerleaders endured hours of questioning, on May 8, 2013, Hardin County District Court Judge Steven Thomas found that the Kountze Cheerleaders had the legal right to display their Bible verse banners at KISD sporting events. He determined that the banners were “constitutionally permissible” and rejected the school district’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit based on the claim that the banners were government speech.

After losing its case against the cheerleaders, the Kountze ISD filed an appeal, and the ACLU filed a brief in support of the school district. On appeal, the Beaumont Court of Appeals declared the case moot because KISD agreed to allow the banners. KISD still asserts, however, that the banners are government speech, which gives them the right to censor the banners at will.

The cheerleaders’ attorneys say that is wrong because the banners are the cheerleaders’ private speech, and Texas law forbids the censoring of students’ private religious expression.

First Liberty Institute, and its volunteer attorneys, asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case and reaffirm the student’s rights to free religious expression, free from government censorship. Some of Texas’s top elected leaders filed briefs, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Senator John Cornyn and Senator Ted Cruz. On January 29, 2016, in an 8-0 decision, the Texas Supreme Court decided in favor of the Kountze Cheerleaders, sending the case back to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in Beaumont, Texas. On September 28, 2017, the Court of Appeals issued its ruling in favor of the cheerleaders, again affirming their rights to religious freedom. On January 15, 2018, the school district filed another appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.  The Texas Supreme Court denied that appeal in August of 2018.  But, once again, the Kountze Independent School District appealed.  Finally, in November, the Court denied that appeal.

Hiram Sasser, one of the attorneys for the cheerleaders and General Counsel to First Liberty, released the following statement on the latest move in litigation dating back to 2012:

After more than five years of litigation, our clients are relieved that the Texas Supreme Court has brought an end to the school district’s scorched earth litigation tactics. As the football season kicks off across Texas, it’s good to be reminded that these cheerleaders have a right to have religious speech on their run through banners—banners on which the cheerleaders painted messages they chose, with paint they paid for, on paper they purchased. School districts everywhere should learn an important lesson from this failed litigation by the Kountze Independent School District: stop harassing cheerleaders and accept that they are free to have religious speech on their run through banners.