by Jorge Gomez • 4 minutes
This high school says seniors can paint their parking spots to personalize them—but not if it’s an expression of their personal faith.
Sabrina Steffens is a senior at Grand Island High School, located in the suburbs Buffalo, New York.
Like many seniors, she’s been looking forward to making the most of her final year. Her first day back is September 4. But before classes even begin, school officials are already souring what should be her best year.
The school says Sabrina is not allowed to decorate her paid parking space with Bible verses and religious artwork.
Talk about deflating school spirit.
Sabrina is a model student and leader. She heads up the Bible club at her school and as a Christian, she loves to express her faith through artwork.
Her school has a tradition that allows seniors to pay for a parking space and decorate it. The school wants to “encourage students to express themselves through positive artwork, to beautify the campus, to build school spirit, and to create a new and exciting tradition to support Senior Class activities and events.”
Sabrina submitted a design that expresses her Christian faith. It included a drawing of “Salvation Mountain” and the phrases, “God is love,” “He loves you,” a cross and John 14:6.
The school told her to remove the Bible verse because it considered the words inside the parking spaces to be “government speech.”
The school guidelines only say students cannot include “offensive language, pictures or symbols, negative or rude language, and ‘gang-style’ tagging.” That’s it. There’s nothing that says students cannot express their faith.
Hoping that she’d still get a chance to decorate her spot, Sabrina sent a second design.
It had the words, “let your light shine”—with the “t” in the word “light” in the shape of a cross—the phrase, “His will, his way, my life,” and the Bible verse reference, Jeremiah 29:11.
Once again, her design was rejected. She was told the phase, “He is King,” would be approved but she could not add any Bible references or mention the name of God.
School officials apparently didn’t show up for their Constitution 101 class.
Sabrina isn’t coloring outside the lines of what the Constitution allows. Quite the opposite. She has every right to express her faith. What she displays on her parking spot is her private speech.
Students don’t give up their First Amendment rights at school. A student’s private religious expression is constitutionally protected even when it occurs on school property.
That legal protection is nothing new. It’s what the Supreme Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines more than 50 years ago. And it’s what the Court reaffirmed recently in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. Teachers and students are free to express their faith without threat of being censored or punished.
We sent a demand letter to the school district this week. We clarify what the law and the Constitution say. We’re making a simple request: let Sabrina decorate her space with the religious messages and designs that she chooses, the same as any other student.
If We File a Lawsuit to Defend Sabrina, Can She Count on Your Support?
With your help, First Liberty has won so many important victories at the U.S. Supreme Court. Decades of bad precedent are gone, and Americans now have more religious freedom than they’ve had in 50 years.
But Sabrina’s case is proof that there’s still a lot of work to do.
Some school districts simply don’t know of these major changes in religious freedom law. Some are fully aware of what the law is, but still discriminate against students and teachers who express their faith at school.
Either way, it’s up to us to make sure no student, teacher or public employee is forced to check their religious freedom at the school door.
Our legal team sent a demand letter to Grand Island High School. We’ll wait to see if they follow the law and do the right thing. In many cases, this is enough to deliver religious freedom for our clients.
We don’t know yet. But this could end up with us filing a lawsuit.
Sometimes that’s what it takes to make sure our clients are made whole. And if litigation is the next step, Sabrina needs to know that she can count on your support.
We’re talking about a young lady who simply wanted to live out her faith. And now, she could be looking at going to court.
With First Liberty, she’ll never be charged a dime for any of our legal services. No bill. No fees. Ever. And that’s why we need your ongoing support.
We want to win for Sabrina. She deserves a victory that rightfully restores her freedom.
If this were your daughter or granddaughter, wouldn’t you want her rights restored, so that she can get right back to her studies and senior year activities?
You’re the one who makes our work possible—including every legal battle that ends in a victory. Please, make a gift to First Liberty today.
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