School district won't ban Bible club after Trump-tied law firm threat, other suits bubble to SCOTUS

Bible sales are soaring amid negligible growth in the larger book industry, even without counting sales of the "God Bless the USA Bible" endorsed by President-elect Trump, in spite of growing secularization in America, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.

Some upstate New York students will finally be able to study this newly trendy literature together at school, following a legal threat from a law firm closely tied to the past and future Trump White House.

Waterville Central School District Superintendent Jennifer Spring told Just the News Thursday night that "inaccurate information was shared with a student regarding the ability to officially establish a Bible Study Club" in January "and alternative options were proposed to the group."

The unofficial club has been "meeting weekly in the library" following "renewed interest" in September, Spring wrote in an email. "In line with district policy," the Board of Education will "formally establish" the club at its Dec. 10 meeting.

"We strive to provide all students with opportunities to learn, grow, and connect through various activities, including student-run clubs," she said. "We appreciate the patience of our students and their families during this process."

The district's explanation does not precisely square with the Dec. 2 legal warning letter from Jones Day and the First Liberty Institute, which said it denied applications by student Elijah Nelson for the past two academic years despite the now-eighth grader satisfying its three listed conditions.

"We have not heard directly from the school district but hope that they will do the right thing," First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Keisha Russell wrote in an email when shown the district's statement.

Assistant Principal Lindsay Owens told father Daniel Nelson that district lawyers concluded recognizing the club – which involves funding and sponsorship – would unconstitutionally "endorse" religion, the warning letter claims, referring to a recorded phone call from January and an October email.

The Supreme Court rejected this view "nearly a quarter-century ago" and repeatedly reaffirmed the government cannot disfavor religious expression, siding with First Liberty in a 2022 ruling requiring Maine to accept "sectarian" schools into its "town tuitioning" program, the letter says.

That same term, SCOTUS ruled that the "personal religious observance" of First Liberty's client Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach fired for praying on the field after games, was "doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment," the firms noted. Kennedy's story was recently made into a feature film.

Jones Day and First Liberty will consider litigation and attorney's fees against the district if it doesn't approve the Bible club "on the same terms and conditions that govern official clubs" by Dec. 11, they said.

Spring showed Just the News her September email to Elijah Nelson, through his father's address, that promises he can start a "student-run bible club" that meets in the library and instructs him to contact Owens, the assistant principal. "Thank you for accepting the club," the younger Nelson wrote back.

The email didn't promise to formally recognize the club, however. "I spoke with the dad this afternoon and shared the update with him," Spring told Just the News. "Unfortunately, the assistant principal didn't communicate that to the father so I think that is where the confusion came from."

Federal appeals courts have a mixed record in recent years on alleged speech suppression in public education, raising the likelihood SCOTUS will further intervene.

Last month, Republican attorneys general, free speech and conservative groups urged SCOTUS to review a 1st Circuit ruling that upheld a Massachusetts school district's ban on shirts reading "There Are Only Two Genders" and "There Are Only Censored Genders." Alliance Defending Freedom represents the censored student, Liam Morrison.

The 6th Circuit, by contrast, voted last month to rehear as a full court a pre-enforcement challenge to an Ohio district's ban on students "repeatedly and intentionally using non-preferred pronouns to refer to their classmates," brought by Parents Defending Education.

Last week the 8th Circuit also voted to rehear en banc a First Amendment case by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of Missouri educators who were forced to take antiracism training and allegedly compelled to agree with the message.

While a three-judge panel overturned a lower court's $313,000 penalty on Brooke Henderson and Jennifer Lumley for "frivolous" litigation, it agreed they didn't have legal standing for their First Amendment suit against Springfield Public Schools.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed its opening brief with the 6th Circuit on Wednesday on behalf of two pseudonymous Michigan students who were ordered to remove their "Let's Go Brandon" sweatshirts because the phrase is "lewd" by alluding to a profane chant against President Biden.

It's a nondisruptive political slogan that "comments on a matter of political or social concern," "teenagers can handle seeing" it without causing disruption, and SCOTUS precedent does not authorize schools to censor "ambiguously" lewd speech, the brief says. 

FIRE said the district court wrongly upheld qualified immunity for Tri County Area Schools officials on the basis that they didn't suffer a constitutional violation, when the Vietnam War-related speech precedent Tinker "clearly established" students' First Amendment rights in school.

First Liberty asked the 1st Circuit to overrule a district judge who upheld a Maine "poison pill" to dissuade religious schools from participating in town tuitioning. ADF asked the 2nd Circuit to reinstate a Vermont Christian school into a state athletics league that banned it for refusing to play a girls' team with a male player who identifies as a girl.

The Waterville district, about an hour southeast of Syracuse, has no legal grounds to deny recognition of Nelson's Bible club, which he said "would study the world’s most widely published book to promote character development, mental health, critical thinking, group collaboration, and reading comprehension," the First Liberty-Jones Day warning letter says. 

It was written by Jones Day partner C. Kevin Marshall, who served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel.

Nelson laid out its "mission and goals," said it would meet "before school or during lunch hour" and welcome anyone, shared signatures of prospective club members and met with the principal on the proposal, the firms said. He proposed inviting local ministers "to assist the students," just as the school's Gay Straight Alliance hosts outside speakers.

Assistant Principal Owens responded with two options not imposed on any other club, according to the letter: "meet informally during lunch while a staff member supervised the students without participating" or "apply as an outside organization to use the School’s facilities after hours."

The district is subject to the federal Equal Access Act, given that it accepts federal funding and has "at least" 22 extracurricular clubs and activities that, like Nelson's proposed club, are "noncurriculum" and meet during non-instructional time, the firms said.

Under the "limited public forum" it has created for these clubs, it cannot "discriminate against or exclude expression of religious viewpoints on subjects on which it allows expression of nonreligious viewpoints," the letter says.

Free exercise of religion guarantees "religious believers may 'live out' their faith 'in daily life'" – the letter quotes SCOTUS in Kennedy's case – and prohibits "denying a generally available benefit because of the applicant’s religious identity or character."

Nelson's club offers "a religious perspective on subjects that the School’s official clubs may, and already do, address," including the Gay Straight Alliance on character formation and the International Club on "global cultural awareness," the letter says.

The district's lawyers asserted an "anachronistic" legal theory, relying on an endorsement test that SCOTUS says it abandoned long before the Kennedy ruling, according to the firms. "Today, the Establishment Clause never requires – and never allows – the government to discriminate against religious persons and organizations when granting benefits."