The First Amendment, becoming accepted once again

Bring a gun to a knife fight: When the officials at West Shore School District in Pennsylvania sent out a letter to the presidents of the various booster clubs at its schools ordering them to “halt prayers at future banquets, and at any other school-sponsored activity” and claiming falsely that “student-initiated prayers at school events are illegal,” two non-profit free speech legal firms, First Liberty and the Independence Law Center teamed up to immediately send a letter to the district challenging that order:

First Liberty and our friends at the Independence Law Center quickly sent a letter to district officials asking them to immediately rescind that threatening letter. Our legal team offered to help draft a new letter and policies to ensure the district would not illegally discriminate against students and staff.

We explained in our letter that the First Amendment prohibits a school district from acting in a hostile manner toward religious belief.

To my readers this story is familiar. What has normally happened next in the past few years — since censorship and blacklisting has become all the rage by those in power — is that the government officials either ignore the letter or publicly defy it. Sometimes they double down and actually fire someone for exercising their First Amendment rights. What follows next is of course a lawsuit, which almost routinely ends in a crushing defeat for the school that costs it significantly in damages.

This story however ended quite differently:

In less than 24 hours, the school district responded favorably. Officials said they would revise their communications to make sure they’re compliant with federal law and in accordance with the Constitution.

It appears that these education officials simply needed some basic education about the Bill of Rights, that no law exists anywhere that makes “”student-initiated prayers at school events illegal,” and in fact all American jurisprudence since the nation’s founding does exactly the opposite, forbiding government officials from interfering in any way with the prayer of anyone.

Though these school officials should have clearly known better, we must at least credit them with quickly recognizing their error, and fixing the problem.

That this story reached such a happy ending so quickly has caused it get almost no coverage by the press. I report it today because I think it signals what might be the emergence of a new very positive trend. A similar thing happened earlier this week in Colorado at the Vanguard School. School officials quickly backed down when their attempt at censoring a 12-year-old’s proud display of a symbol of the American Revolution became public knowledge. They had realized that their actions not only violated the Bill of Rights and was illegal, it was also was producing a lot of bad publicity.

In both cases the officials in charge quickly moved to end the controversy. In the case of the Vanguard School, their initial reluctance to correct their error allowed the story to go viral, to the school’s detriment. Too bad for them. They deserve the bad press for that hesitation.

In the case of West Shore School District, when first notified they were in error, school officials immediately acted to correct their mistake, thus preventing the story from going viral at all. Kudos to them. While they should have known such basic American law from the beginning — especially because they are supposed to teach it — we must credit them for admitting error without hesitation and moving forward positively.

Both stories suggest that if in the future people resist these efforts at blacklisting and censorship, they will gain quicker and quicker victories. Or to put it more bluntly, don’t be a sheep, be a tiger. Fight back immediately, with all the resources you can muster. The odds are increasing you will win, and possibly win fast.

I also want to note this story because it introduces the name of another non-profit legal firm in this fight that I had been unaware of, the Independence Law Center. As it notes on its webpage:

We defend human life at all stages and defend the rights of the people to freely exercise their religion, as well as all the other First Amendment freedoms that depend on that first freedom. We protect and advance these and other self-evident truths through advocacy in courts of law and courts of public opinion, and through legislative, local, and educational policy development.

I have now added this firm to my list of non-profit legal firms that have all replaced the bankrupt ACLU in fighting battle for liberty and free speech. While the ACLU is fighting to allow hospitals and parents to castrate and mutilate little children, these firms have stepped up to defend the Bill of Rights and the basic value of freedom and the rule of law that made this country the light of liberty to the world.

If you find yourself being blacklisted or censored, you might want to quickly contact one of the firms listed at my essay: Where to get legal help if you have been illegally blacklisted. You may have a viable case for victory, and in fact, you may find victory occurring faster than you expect.