WASHINGTON – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, along with co-counsel Charitable Allies, asked the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to hear the case of an Indiana high school pro-life organization and the student who started it. The suit challenges the actions of school officials who censored posters that had an image of pro-lifers holding signs saying, “Defund Planned Parenthood.”
“Students don’t lose their constitutionally protected freedom of speech when they walk into a school building. A school can’t tell a high-school student or student organization that they can’t publicly express pro-life messages that are important to them,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch. “While other student groups at the school were free to express their messages, the school censored this club’s flyers and then revoked the club’s recognition because the messages on the flyers were too overtly pro-life.”
A Noblesville High School freshman started Noblesville Students for Life in 2021 after securing an adviser and meeting with the principal. The principal initially recognized the group as one of the school’s more than 70 noncurricular clubs. Those clubs are not school sponsored but “student-driven and student-led.” Recognized clubs could hang flyers in school common areas to promote club meetings and events; no written policy governed the flyers’ content.
But when the student asked for permission to post flyers advertising the first NSFL meeting, school officials said no because the flyers contained a picture of students holding signs that read, “Defund Planned Parenthood.” Officials claimed that the flyers were too “political.” The principal then revoked NSFL’s recognition altogether.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the school district’s censorship in E.D. v. Noblesville School District, prompting the appeal to the high court.
“The need for clarity” about protections for student speech, the petition filed with the Supreme Court explains, “is especially acute as public schools and educators increasingly engage in political advocacy and indoctrination, heightening the risk that students who dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy will be censored.”
“Free speech rights you can’t use don’t exist,” Kristan Hawkins, President of Students for Life of America said. “We are not going to forget about our students’ rights or ignore attempts to silence them, no matter how long it takes.”
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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