11-yr Old Banned From Wearing Jesus Mask Prevails Against School Board
A Mississippi student who was told she couldn’t wear a “Jesus Loves Me” mask to school has won a religious freedom battle against the local school district.
The 11-year-old student reached a settlement last week in a two-year religious freedom lawsuit against the Simpson County School District in Mississippi.
In 2020, the Simpson County school board enacted a mask requirement due to COVID. The mandate required all students to wear a mask in class.
Lydia Booth, who was nine years old at the time, frequently wore a mask with the words “Jesus Loves Me” on it without issue. In the fall of 2020, Lydia was told by a teacher that she was no longer allowed to wear that particular mask.
Lydia’s mother, Jennifer Booth, told the local press that she assumed the teacher was having a bad day and sent her daughter back to school with the mask. Booth explained that she then received a call from the principal informing her that Lydia would have to wear a different mask, claiming that it was against policy “to have religious symbols or gestures on her mask.”
However, according to Booth, no such rule existed in the school’s handbook. After contacting district officials, she was sent a copy of the COVID-19 policy prohibiting religious symbols and words on masks. However, Booth discovered that the district’s policy had been updated to include the language less than an hour before it was emailed to her.
The district’s updated policy stated that students could not wear masks containing “political, religious, sexual or inappropriate symbols, gestures or statements that may be offensive, disruptive or deemed distractive to the school environment.”
In November 2020, Booth partnered with the legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom to file a lawsuit against the district on behalf of her daughter.
Booth explained, “This year is the mask; next year is the T-shirt. Eventually, you can’t say Jesus’ name in school.”
“Public schools have no business discriminating against a 9-year-old for her religious expression,” said Alliance Defending Freedom legal counsel Michael Ross. “Other students within the school district have freely worn masks with the logos of local sports teams or even the words ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Lydia deserves and will now have an equal opportunity to peacefully express her beliefs.”
Last week, ADF announced that Simpson County School District agreed to rescind its restrictions on “political” and “religious” content on masks. As part of the settlement, Booth and ADF dropped the lawsuit.
“No student should be singled out for peacefully expressing her religious beliefs,” stated ADF senior counsel Tyson Langhofer. “Today’s students will be tomorrow’s legislators, judges, educators, and voters. That’s why it’s so important that public schools demonstrate the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students.”
I hope the school was royally sued. Not that money will fix this problem but the left only seem to also get the point when they are hit in the pocketbook. Disgusting left. All the more Christians should defy and stand strong against Satan and his followers, the schoolboars in this case. How pathetic society is afraid to stand up for what is right and decent.
Love that girl she deserves the right to ! She also has a great family that supports her!
YOU GO GIRL !
Cheers for Lydia Booth!
Gotta say it. The Constitution guarantees us Freedom of Religion. It does NOT guarantee us Freedom FROM religion. Supposedly, we live in a Democracy where the will of the majority is to be the law of the land. Seems that all we do is protect every minor nit-picker who has a nit to pick about ANYTHING! I think it’s time to assure us all the true freedom of religion that our founding fathers wanted. Face it, they were mostly Christians who wanted to have something other than the State Church of England. Such acts as trying to stop a 9-year-old girl from saying “Jesus Loves Me” just don’t fit into the realm of religious freedom. We Christians seem to be getting more and more picked on over the past couple of decades. The Bible tells us we’ll suffer for our beliefs. Seems that this sort of thing is the start of it. Hope I’m wrong.
we do not live in a democracy where majority is law. we live in a republic where minorities are protected.
Maybe the majority likes to protect the minority in our democracy?
It’s Mississippi, good luck blaming them liberals.
I understand separation of Church and State but in a world where logo’s, banners, whatever festoon every article of clothing, having a “statement free” garment is almost impossible and expensive.
Plus they had no law, rule, or regulation but made it up on the fly, good luck with that in court,
I checked NJ and it seems this would fly most places here, and if it flies here, it must be OK in most places.
Frankly, I would have been worried more about the clothe mask not being a K95.
Good for her, way to fight for the right.