Student’s Rights Sustained

By Jay Delancy, 11.29.06

A federal judge made news in early November by temporarily siding with a rural North Carolina ninth-grader after school officials punished him for passing out Christian literature at the Sampson County school he attends.

Witnesses say that student Benjamin Arthurs distributed a card called “Day of Truth,” to classmates, after several students participated in a nationwide homosexual-rights protest called “Day of Silence.”

But the heart of this case involves how school officials regulate those expressions.

David Cortman, Arthurs’ attorney, is challenging two policies against distribution of religious literature in Sampson County schools. The first prohibits all literature distribution by students and the second policy specifically bars students from handing out religious literature.

“Nothing was done to stop the Day of Silence literature from being distributed,” according to Arthurs’ attorney, David Cortman. And Arthurs was suspended.

Cortman sent the school system a letter after Arthurs was punished, resulting in a conversation between Cortman and Sampson County School Superintendent, Dr. Stewart Hobbs.

“At the beginning of the case, Dr. Hobbs told me that school is a religion-free zone, but students have the constitutional right to share their religion in school,” Cortman said.

Richard Schwartz, attorney for the defendant, disagrees with Cortman.

“Public schools are not religion-free zones. Students practice religious expression every day in schools all across the nation,” Schwartz said.

It’s generally agreed on both sides that public school students can have limitations to their free speech because of the need to avoid disruptions in the education process.

“Disruption was the key. The plaintiff [Arthurs] was handing out literature in the hallway between classes and was taping fliers on lockers,” Schwartz said, “and he was only suspended for one day.”

School officials allege that Arthurs was targeting certain people that he believed to be homosexual, and this aspect of Arthurs’ behavior led to disruptions.

Cortman said the disruption involved a single student who didn’t like Arthurs’ literature and burst into a classroom to make his point.

“Supposedly, one student got upset by Ben’s card and then walked in and disturbed a class,” Cortman said. “Why should Ben get in trouble because of the actions of another student?”

Senior U.S. District Judge, W. Earl Britt, ordered the school system to stop enforcing their literature suppression, but the order did not consider alleged details of either protest.

The case is in the discovery phase, meaning both sides are gathering depositions and preparing for a hearing to see if the judge will make permanent the order from the first round. The second round will be in June 2007.