ADF: Texas school district right to ignore atheist group's demand to cancel assembly

FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas school district was right to reject an atheist group’s demand that it cancel a non-religious school assembly just because the presenters were Christians, according to a letter sent to the district Monday by the Alliance Defense Fund.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation had demanded that Northwest Independent School District cancel the assembly, which Byron Nelson High School held as part of its character initiative on Oct. 12. The district’s attorney responded by saying that it found no grounds for cancellation.

“It’s absurd to say that Christians must be excluded from public life simply because they are Christians,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “This was a non-religious assembly. The school did exactly what they should and must do under the Constitution in such circumstances: refuse to discriminate against people on the basis of their faith. We hope other school districts will follow this district’s lead in standing up to illegitimate demands made by secularist groups who distort the meaning of the First Amendment.”

High school officials invited the “Seven Project” to the school to present a non-religious program promoting character development and good citizenship. Although the “Seven Project” is made up of Christians, none of the information in the presentation is religious in nature, and district officials agreed that the program’s content was consistent with the school’s character-building curriculum.

“In advocating for the wholesale exclusion of people of faith from public life, or even participation in public schools, the Freedom from Religion Foundation demonstrates that its actions are based not on law, but on an obvious hostility to religion that is in direct conflict with the First Amendment,” the ADF letter states. “Canceling the Seven Project assembly based on the presenters’ Christian faith would clearly violate the First Amendment and the principles of individual liberty our Constitution was designed to protect.”

Jeffrey Mateer, general counsel for the Liberty Institute, and Gregory Perrone, one of nearly 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, also signed the ADF letter to the district.

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.