Christ First Forum

May 21, 2011

"Candy Cane case" could make history

It was December 2003, and 8-year-old Jonathan Morgan had packed goodie bags for his classmates. The Plano, Tex., students were to exchange their treasures at the winter party, just like they did every year.

But that year, Jonathan did not get to participate. Why? Because he had included candy cane pens and a message about Jesus in his goodie bags.

Two years earlier, another Plano student had had pencils confiscated from her goodie bags. They read: “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.”

School officials in Plano even banned an entire class from writing “Merry Christmas” on cards to U.S. troops serving in Iraq.

Today, Jonathan, now 16, and two of his peers are at the center of a history-making legal battle over First Amendment rights. Specifically, are children required to leave their rights at the schoolhouse door?

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans will hear the schools’ appeal of Morgan et al. v Plano, Texas Independent School District. And Jonathan will have some legal heavyweights on his side.

Former Solicitors General Kenneth Starr and Paul Clement — who is defending the federal Defense of Marriage Act in court — are teaming up with the Liberty Institute, a Texas policy group that is associated with CitizenLink.

“This is a very important case for the First Amendment,” said Starr, who is the president of Baylor University. “For over a half-century, the Supreme Court and other courts have held that schoolchildren have constitutional rights, and that’s what’s at stake here. “A ruling to the effect that schoolchildren don’t have those rights would represent a very significant departure from settled law. More than that, it would give enormous power to schools in ways that are really incompatible with a spirit of liberty that informs a constitutional republic.”

Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the Liberty Institute, is asking every Christian to be praying that religious freedom would be upheld. “Think of what (a defeat) would mean,” he said. “No religious freedom, no right to respectfully express a different opinion than the government, religious discrimination permitted, and no way for parents to protect their children.”

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