Supreme Court Lets Stand Equal Access Win in AZ Literature Distribution Case
The American Center for Law and Justice, an international public interest law firm, said today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to take an equal access case out of Arizona reinforces the constitutional protections afforded to religious speech…
In December, the ACLJ urged the high court to let stand an appeals court decision that overturned, as unconstitutional, an Arizona school district’s discriminatory refusal to distribute an organization’s brochures to promote an event because the event included religious speech.
“There was never any reason for the Supreme Court to take this case,” said Walter M. Weber, Senior Litigation Counsel of the ACLJ, which filed suit against the school district. “The law is clear on this issue. If a school district permits distribution of material from private groups, it cannot prohibit the distribution of literature simply because it promotes an event with a religious viewpoint. The federal appeals court correctly determined that such action is unconstitutional. And, clearly, the Supreme Court saw no need to revisit that decision.”
The case began in 2000 when the ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit against the Scottsdale Unified School District No. 48 on behalf of Joseph Hills, president of an organization called “A Little Sonshine from Arizona” – a non-profit educational corporation that had planned to conduct a summer camp for kids and to advertise that camp through the school system. Although the school routinely distributed other summer camp flyers, the school district refused to distribute the brochure Hills submitted advertising a summer camp for kids because two of the nineteen classes were Bible classes. The school district told Hills it would consider permitting the distribution of the brochure if he removed the descriptions of the Bible classes and removed graphics of the Bible, a cross, and a dove carrying an olive branch.
In a unanimous decision in May 2003, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of Hills saying the school district’s exclusion of the brochure “constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination.” The school district asked the Supreme Court to take the case.
“The federal appeals court handed down a straightforward application of settled law,” said Weber. “There is no conflict on this issue among the federal appeals courts. It is clear that private speech – including religious speech – enjoys constitutional protections. The Supreme Court did what it should have done – let the lower court decision stand.”
The case is No. 03-693, Scottsdale Unified School District No. 48, et al., v. Joseph J. Hills.
The American Center for Law and Justice is an international public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law and based in Washington, D.C. The website address is www.aclj.org.
