ACT! FOR AMERICA DEFEATS CAIR AND GOVERNMENT
BUREAUCRATS IN COURT
In February an ACT! For America chapter in Knoxville,
Tennessee, was wrongfully denied the use of public facilities for a counter-sharia
event due to the improper actions of CAIR and local school district
bureaucrats. Our ACT! Chapter pursued litigation aggressively and this week won
a settlement in its suit against the school district. Below are the details
from Freedom X <[ http://freedomxlaw.com/ ]( http://freedomxlaw.com/ )> , the fine legal team who successfully litigated the
case.
This should serve as
a warning to government officials everywhere not to take legal advice from, or
ally with, CAIR, an organization that openly promotes sharia and was named an
unindicted co-conspirator in the largest successful terrorism financing
prosecution in US history, the US v the Holy Land Foundation.
Lawsuit forces Tennessee school district to allow
after-school speech critical of Sharia
–KNOXVILLE – After canceling a town hall meeting at the
request of Muslim activists, a Tennessee school district and two school
officials have settled a lawsuit over the public’s right to voice concerns
about the growing acceptance of Islamic law, known as Sharia law, spreading
through American communities. The settlement was finalized Wednesday evening
when the district approved a policy barring school officials from selectively
determining which subjects can be discussed by members of the public using
school facilities.
In February, the
Knoxville chapter of ACT! for America, an organization opposed to Sharia,
planned an after-hours town hall meeting at a local area high school.
John Peach,
president of the Knoxville chapter of ACT! for America, and Bill French sued
the school district in U.S. District Court on August 4, 2014, for violating
their First Amendment right of free speech and their Fourteenth Amendment
rights of equal protection and due process. The county agreed to settle the
lawsuit [Peach vs. Knox County Schools] just 21 days after it was filed. In
addition to revising its facility use policy, the county will pay attorney’s
fees and costs.
The new facility use
policy states in part that “[a]pproval for use of school buildings and property
will not be withheld based upon the content of the message or viewpoint of the
applicant.”
“This is a victory
for free speech,” said Bill Becker, president of Freedom X, a non-profit legal
organization fighting discrimination against conservatives and Christians.
“Sharia is incompatible with our constitutional and legal protections. That was
the message Knox County school officials tried to censor. It is unfortunate we
have to educate the educators about our freedoms, but we are thankful that Knox
county attorneys recognized litigation would have been futile for the
district.”
Knox County Schools
superintendent James P. McIntyre, Jr., agreed to cancellation of ACT’s event
after receiving letters from Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the
Council for American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and AbdulRaman Murphy, a Muslim
youth chaplain at the University of Tennessee. The activists falsely labeled
ACT! a “hate group” and falsely characterized French as a bigot. They
speculated the town hall meeting would encourage violence at the school and
would disrupt the school environment.
After receiving the
letters, Farragut High School’s principal at the time, Michael F. Reynolds,
contacted McIntyre fearing that allowing the town hall meeting to take place
would convert the school into “a public forum for harassment and bullying
practices that contradict the open-minded, academic discussion we seek to teach
and foster.”
In 1969, the U.S.
Supreme Court held in Tinker v. Des Moines Sch. Dist. that “in our system,
undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance is not enough to overcome
the right to freedom of expression. Any departure from absolute regimentation
may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority's opinion may inspire fear.
Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates
from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance.
But our Constitution says we must take this risk and our history says that it
is this sort of hazardous freedom -- this kind of openness -- that is the basis
of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who
grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society.”
Source: ACT for America, P.O. Box 12765 Pensacola, FL 32591
[ www.actforamerica.org ]( http://www.actforamerica.org
) <[ http://www.actforamerica.org ]( http://www.actforamerica.org )>
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