Censoring Religious Expression on Campus

The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan today announced an out-of-court settlement between the Utica Community School District and a local student over the censorship of her 2001 yearbook entry. The student’s entry had been deleted from the yearbook because it contained a passage from the Bible.

“While it is true that the Constitution forbids public schools to promote religion, schools must be careful not to suppress the private religious expression of students,” said ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg, who represented the student. “In this case, a high school purported to create an open forum for student expression, yet censored a student’s speech because it was religious in nature.”

The student, Abbey Moler, was valedictorian of Stevenson High School’s class of 2001 in Sterling Heights, a town of 17,000 located 25 miles north of Detroit. She and a handful of other noteworthy graduates were profiled in a section of the yearbook listing the students’ activities and the colleges they planned to attend. In addition, each student was invited to share some words of wisdom or advice to pass on to the rest of the school.

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
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