Christian Middle School Student Suspended for Sharing His Faith With Classmates

“A student has a right to express religious views to their classmates, and a school lacks the authority to prohibit a student from sharing religious views with others.”

A Christian middle school student’s parents say he was suspended for three days over a discussion with his classmates about his faith.

“She told me that my son had violated Title IX,” the child’s father told radio host Todd Starnes of a meeting he was called upon to attend with school administrators over his son’s “continued behavior.”

The 12-year-old had told some of his classmates at Envision Science Academy in Wake Forest, North Carolina last year his belief that they needed a relationship with Jesus Christ to go to heaven.

When school began this year, the classmates had been taunting the devout Christian child.

“The two kids who had complained interjected themselves into the conversation and ridiculed my son about his faith and how stupid it was,” his father said.

“She said they were going to suspend him for borderline harassment,” he explained. “They took the word of the other kids above my son’s word.”

Attorney Jordan Sekulow of the ACLJ, who is representing the family, says that the school’s punishment “could not be more unconstitutional.”

“The school could not have been more wrong,” he explained. “There are many things public schools cannot do to their students, but one of the most important is that they cannot forbid them from sharing with others their religious faith and belief. Prohibiting a student from discussing Jesus with their classmates is one of the most obvious ways a school violates its responsibility under the First Amendment.”

“We will continue to hold this school, and any school that engages in similarly blatantly illegitimate behavior, accountable to the Constitution,” Sekulow added.