{"id":158483,"date":"2016-12-18T09:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-12-18T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=158483"},"modified":"2016-12-19T09:12:41","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T14:12:41","slug":"indiana-high-school-officials-censor-pro-life-students-face-possible-legal-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/indiana-high-school-officials-censor-pro-life-students-face-possible-legal-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana high school officials censor pro-life students, face possible legal action"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lc.org\/about-liberty-counsel\">Liberty Counsel<\/a>, a nonprofit litigation, education, and policy organization based in Florida, officials at Carmel High School in Indiana may have violated the rights of pro-life students by censoring\u00a0a poster created by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CarmelTeensforLife\/\">Carmel Teens for Life<\/a>, allegedly after another student became offended by the poster.<\/p>\n<p>The poster features hand-painted hearts and the words, &#8220;3,000 Lives Are Ended Each Day,&#8221; and took the students 25 hours to make. The pro-life student group explained in a Facebook post that their goal was to &#8220;visually present how many lives are lost to abortion daily &#8211; while also presenting adoption as the solution to this problem!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FCarmelTeensforLife%2Fposts%2F1299871316700863&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"702\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The students have said they received permission from school officials to hang the poster\u00a0but were later told it had not been approved. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lc.org\/newsroom\/details\/121316-school-officials-fail-by-muzzling-prolife-clubs-free-speech\">a press release<\/a>, Liberty Counsel notes that the &#8220;poster was, in fact, approved for display, as evidenced by approval stamps on each of its component pages, and it complied with club signage guidelines.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Liberty Counsel also says that the school&#8217;s attempts to stifle pro-life speech did not stop at removing the poster. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/story\/news\/fox59\/2016\/12\/14\/carmel-high-school-questioned-over-anti-abortion-poster\/95417140\/\">Indy Star <\/a>reports:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Administrators, Liberty Counsel claims, also wanted Carmel Teens for Life officers to no longer use the word &#8216;abortion&#8217; in written and oral communications, including posters and on their Facebook page. On Friday, they asked the club members to sign an agreement barring them from seeking outside legal help.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to Liberty Counsel, the school threatened to force pro-life\u00a0club sponsors to resign if the agreement was not signed.<\/p>\n<p>Liberty Counsel&#8217;s Richard Mast, Jr., says that Carmel High School has allowed\u00a0controversial posters in the past, including pro-gay rights and other political posters. Therefore, Mast contends,\u00a0removing the pro-life poster represents a case of unfairly\u00a0singling out a specific viewpoint for censorship.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/lc.org\/compresspdf_PnbpHu2o.pdf\">a letter<\/a> to Superintendent Nicholas Wahl, Mast wrote, &#8220;To avoid legal action, please immediately reverse this decision and confirm that the school district will respect the private speech of public school students.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>John L. Hill, a professor at Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, emphasized that the Supreme Court has ruled against public schools in similar discrimination cases.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The worst kind of discrimination under the First Amendment is viewpoint discrimination,&#8221; Hill told The Indy Star. &#8220;If they permit groups to put up posters generally, but single out this one group individually, they can&#8217;t do that. [Public schools] cannot pick and choose which viewpoints get heard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>School officials\u00a0stated that they are taking the claims &#8220;very seriously,&#8221; and hope to resolve the situation peacefully.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are reviewing the matter to determine what happened and to respond to our students and community in an appropriate and respectful manner,&#8221; officials told The Indy Star.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Carmel High School&#8217;s censorship of students&#8217;\u00a0pro-life speech is not exactly\u00a0an isolated case. Live Action News has covered a range of similar\u00a0cases, including a <a href=\"\/news\/nebraska-high-school-refuses-allow-student-led-pro-life-club\/\">Nebraska high school<\/a>\u00a0which refused to allow a student-led pro-life group, a pro-life college student who was\u00a0<a href=\"\/news\/professor-threatened-pro-life-student-bad-grade-because-you-are-wrong\/\">threatened with a bad grade<\/a> because the professor considered her pro-life values to be &#8220;wrong,&#8221; and a Kentucky high school which banned\u00a0<a href=\"\/news\/kentucky-high-school-censors-pro-life-flyers-featuring-mother-teresa\/\">pro-life flyers<\/a> featuring a Mother Theresa quote.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit litigation, education, and policy organization based in Florida, officials at Carmel High School in Indiana may have violated the rights of pro-life students by censoring\u00a0a poster created by Carmel Teens for Life, allegedly after another student became offended by the poster. The poster features hand-painted hearts and the words, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":307,"featured_media":158606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2793],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Indiana high school officials censor pro-life students, face possible legal action<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The approved, hand-painted poster was removed, and Carmel Teens for Life members were asked to no longer use the word &quot;abortion&quot; in any communications.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/indiana-high-school-officials-censor-pro-life-students-face-possible-legal-action\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indiana high school officials censor pro-life students, face possible legal action\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The approved, hand-painted poster was removed, and Carmel Teens for Life members were asked to no longer use the word &quot;abortion&quot; 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