The non-profit legal group Liberty Counsel is asking Heritage High School officials to reverse their suspension of 12 Christian students for meeting in the cafeteria during non-instructional time to pray.
After a Satanist student approached school administrators to complain about the prayer group, Vice Principal Alex Otoupal told the Christians they could no longer meet.
Mat Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, said the students might not have been punished if they had met for just about any other reason.
"These are students who, if they wanted to gather together and talk about American Idol or talk about whatever subject they wanted to and [there would be] no problem," Staver said. "But in this case they were told not to gather anymore -- ever -- because they wanted to gather together and pray."
What the school did is clearly and blatantly illegal, he said.
"The First Amendment really is a common-sense instrument when it comes to student speech on public school campuses," Staver noted. "Any time students are in non-instructional time -- before school, after school, in between class and in the cafeteria -- they can talk about secular topics and they can also talk about religious topics."
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said freedom of speech and religion are the most basic of our protected freedoms.
"I'm always amazed at the level of constitutional illiteracy that exists in many public school administrations," he said. "Those students did nothing wrong, and either through hostility or misunderstanding, the school trampled their rights.
"If the people charged with running our public education don't understand the simplest concepts of our Constitution, how on earth can they teach it?"
Staver said the school needs to change its position immediately.
"We've asked the school to revoke the suspension, take it off their record, and allow these students to immediately come back to school," he said. "Otherwise we'll file suit on their behalf."
