N.M. v. Nederland Independent School District resource page
Religious freedom prevails in Texas school flier showdown
ADF attorney sound bite: Matt Sharp
ADF attorneys filed a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit Friday in light of the policy change and the district’s decision to provide training to all administrators on the constitutionally protected rights of students to engage in religious expression at school.
“Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Matt Sharp. “We commend the school district’s decision to respect this third-grader’s constitutionally protected right to hand invitations to his fellow classmates during non-instructional time as other students have been allowed to do.”
A teacher had denied the Hillcrest Elementary School student permission to invite classmates to an AWANA (“Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed”) club meeting at a local church that would include games and hearing a Bible story. Other students were freely permitted to distribute invitations for events such as birthday parties.
The ADF lawsuit prompted the school district to revise its policy on the distribution of materials so that it now states, “The District shall not discriminate based on the viewpoint, whether religious or non-religious, expressed in private, student-to-student, non-disruptive speech.”
Houston attorney G. Scott Fiddler, one of more than 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, served as local counsel in the lawsuit, N.M. v. Nederland Independent School District, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Division.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
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ABOUT Matt Sharp
Matt Sharp serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, where he is the director of the Center for Public Policy. In this role, he leads ADF's team of policy experts as they craft legislation and advise government officials on policies that promote free speech, religious freedom, parental rights, and the sanctity of human life. Since joining ADF in 2010, Sharp has authored federal and state legislation, regularly provides testimony and legal analysis on how proposed legislation will impact constitutional freedoms, and advises governors, legislators, and state and national policy organizations on the importance of laws and policies that protect First Amendment rights. He has twice testified before the U.S. Congress on the importance of protecting free speech and religious liberty in federal law. Sharp also authored an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of nearly 9,000 students, parents, and community members asking the court to uphold students’ right to privacy against government intrusion. Sharp earned his J.D. in 2006 from the Vanderbilt University School of Law. A member of the bar in Georgia and Tennessee, he is also admitted to practice in several federal courts.