Texas high court revives cheerleader suit over Scripture-themed banners

The Texas Supreme Court has handed a half-time victory to a group of high school cheerleaders who sued for the right to put Bible verses on the banners they paint for football games.

Cheerleaders and their parents sued the Kountze Independent School District in 2012 after administrators tried to ban the girls from using Scripture in the football team’s run-through banners. The district instituted the ban after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained that the banners violated a First Amendment clause that bars government, or in this case, publicly funded school districts, from establishing or endorsing a religion.

In 2013, a state district court ruled the banners constitutionally permissible, declaring no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.” The school district rescinded its ban but maintained its right to control what the cheerleaders write on the banners in the future.

The district tried to get the courts to drop the cheerleaders’ suit, claiming it was moot in light of the abandoned Scripture ban. An appeals court sided with the district, but in a unanimous 8-0 decision, the Texas Supreme Court ruled this morning that the girls’ case can continue.

“The district’s voluntary abandonment here provides no assurance that the district will not prohibit the cheerleaders from displaying banners with religious signs or messages at school-sponsored events in the future,” the judges wrote in the majority opinion. “Indeed, Resolution and Order No. 3 only states the district is not required to prohibit the cheerleaders from displaying such banners, and reserves to the district unfettered discretion in regulating those banners—including the apparent authority to do so based solely on their religious content.”

Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of Liberty Institute, the Texas-based Christian legal group that helped represent the cheerleaders, called the ruling a “free speech and religious liberty” victory for all Texas students.

“We are delighted that the court considered this case so straightforward that it did not even require oral argument,” he said. “In light of today’s Supreme Court ruling, we hope the Court of Appeals will resolve this case permanently in the cheerleaders’ favor.”