Student over-ruled by Judge on ‘Jesus speech’?

Colorado Springs Gazette

Lewis-Palmer School District 38 did not violate the First Amendment rights of a 2006 graduate when it disciplined her for mentioning Jesus Christ in a valedictorian speech, a federal judge has ruled.

The former student, Erica Corder, said Thursday that she is considering an appeal.

U.S. District Court Judge Walker D. Miller dismissed the lawsuit Corder filed in August 2007, accusing the school district of violating free speech and free religious expression.

Corder was one of several top-performing students chosen to share in Lewis-Palmer High School’s 2006 commencement speech. The students’ remarks were screened in advance, but Corder changed her message on the spot to encourage the audience to consider the Christian faith. She was allowed to graduate, but the principal first required her to write a letter explaining her actions and acknowledging the remarks were her personal views, not the district’s.

Fifteen months later she sued, saying that the requirement to write the letter and the pre-screening of the speeches were unconstitutional. Her family also accused the district of treating religious and nonreligious speech differently as a violation of the equal protection clause. She is represented at no cost by Liberty Counsel, an East Coast law firm that takes up religious causes….

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