The Daily Signal - School Board Member Sues for Right to Recite Bible Verses

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Since she began serving on her local school board in Arizona in January, Heather Rooks has made it a practice to begin her meeting comments by reading a Scripture verse she found encouraging. Rooks says citing Scriptures such as Isaiah 41:10—“Do not fear for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God”—served as an inspiration to her. “I continued to do it, because it really gave me a lot of strength and courage, and just really brought me peace while I'm up there making those big decisions when it comes to children,” she says. But it did not take long before the mother of four was told she had to stop the practice. Rooks' Scripture reading drew objection from inside and even outside the school district, and she received a “cease and desist” letter from a secular organization that told her she had to stop her practice because it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. After receiving the letter, Rooks contacted First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based conservative law firm specializing in religious freedom. Rooks’ actions are “clearly within the framework of legislative acknowledgements of religion,” says Hiram Sasser, Rooks' attorney. Of behalf of Rooks, First Liberty Institute has served the Peoria Unified School District in Glendale, Arizona, with a lawsuit holding that it's within the school board member's rights to read Scripture at the meetings. Rooks and Sasser join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the lawsuit and explain why citing Scripture at a school board meeting is not a violation of the establishment clause. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Sentinel podcast for Monday, October 30th. I'm Virginia Allen. Wife and mother, Heather Rooks began serving on the Peoria Unified School Board in Arizona earlier this year. During each meeting, Heather had a tradition of opening her comments by quoting a scripture. But over the summer, Heather was told that she had to stop. Heather is now represented by First Liberty Institute and is fighting for her First Amendment rights. Heather and her First Liberty Attorney joined the show today to explain why Heather's quoting of scripture at a school board meeting is within her constitutional rights. Stay tuned for our conversation after this.

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please go to heritage.org slash intern. It is my pleasure today to be joined by Heather Rooks. She is a wife, a mom, and a school board member out in Arizona. And we are also joined today by Hiram Sasser. He is an attorney with First Liberty Institute. Thank you both so much for being here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. Heather, I want to start with your story and just laying out some context for the situation that you're currently finding yourself in.

You became a member of the Pretoria School Board in Arizona back in January of this year. And each school board member during school board meetings, you have a time to give some comments, give some remarks. And you made the decision that you wanted to, at every school board meeting, open up those remarks by quoting some scripture. And you did that for quite some time until in August you were told that you were not allowed to do that anymore. Just explain what happened if you would. Yeah, so our first governing board meeting was in January of this school year. And I opened up my board comments with thanking the community and the parents and everybody's involvement in that process. And I quoted a scripture verse.

It just was speaking to me at the time with God. and it just, it really set well with me at that time. So I continue to do it because it really gave me a lot of strength and courage and just really brought my peace while I'm up there making those big decisions when it comes to children. And so that's just kind of what I started doing as a first-time school board member. And then when were you told and what was the reason given for when someone else on that school board said, actually, you can't quote scripture. Yeah, so we were told, I was actually the whole board, we were told that we weren't allowed to do that.

It was probably around June, July, somewhere in there that we were told not to. And the reason they gave was the establishment clause. And I just remember thinking like, oh, my goodness, this is crazy. I just, I was like, this is America. Like, I don't understand how that can be. And so I had reached out to, you know, First Liberty Institute, and they partnered with Hiram's law firm in Texas. And so it just was really nice to have that help from, you know, the legal team.

So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Hiram, we're going to pull you in here in a second and get your legal expertise on this. Heather, which scripture verse were you quoting? Was it a different one every board meeting? Was it the same verse? Yeah, it was a different one each board meeting.

It was just one that kind of God spoke to me. to say at each meeting to just kind of give me that courage, the calmness, you know, that he's got me through these difficult decisions that I'm making because they're children. That's important. And so it was different ones. I know one of my, the first one I read in January was Joshua 1-9. And that just, it really gave me his strength, his courage to be up there as a board member and to make those kind of decisions. Yeah, hard decisions that you make for your own kids, which you're hearing a little bit in the background. I love that as a mom. It's so important to have moms on our school boards because you all, you're in the middle of it and you have a pulse on what our kids actually need on a

day-to-day basis. It's critical. So I want to turn to you for a second. So Heather was told, because of the establishment clause, that she can't quote scripture at school board meetings. from a legal perspective, what's your analysis on that? Well, you know, it's kind of funny because, you know, this is all taking place after the Coach Kennedy case. And, you know, for years and years, for 50 years, there was a case on the books called Lemon versus Kurtzman. And all we heard was that, well, if anything endorses religion, if the government or any

government official, you know, endorses religion, basically acknowledging that. that it's good or in some way just by, you know, participating or doing something, just any kind of, quote, endorsement of religion. That was bad and that was a violation. So most school district lawyers, their default response, any time they were dealing with religious speech in schools, was to censor the speech. They thought that that was sort of the most prudent approach.

But now after the Coach Kennedy win, and that destroyed Lemon versus Kurtz, And now we have a new test, which is basically asking, is the government making anybody do anything, the coercion test? And we also have the history and traditions test. Well, what would our founding fathers think about this? You know, so given that, you know, Coach Kennedy won his right to be able to pray on the 50-yard line after the games. But it changed the dynamic for all of these establishment clause cases. And so now the new dynamic is that whenever they're dealing with religious speech, they should ask

the question, you know, we're going to accommodate it unless. So before it was, we'll censor it unless. And now it's supposed to be, we'll accommodate it unless. And here, it's just reading a Bible verses. It's, it's probably, we probably didn't even have to have Coach Kennedy on the books for this one to prevail because Heather is a legislator and legislative prayer has been happening ever since the Continental Congress. So we're, we're in pretty good shape. And I really just don't understand why the school district is trying to make hay over this when they're on really thin ice. So then what is your arguments before the court? Well, I mean, I think the argument is that this is clearly within the framework of legislative, you know,

acknowledgments of religion. This is actually something short of a prayer, which is already the Supreme Court has, you know, said time and time again, multiple decades that beginning legislative sessions with prayer is perfectly fine. This is actually like two steps removed from past Supreme Court wins, even when Lemon was on the books. And that is the way it's removed is that this is just one board member saying it during their personal board time. So she's actually, you know, not acting on behalf of the school district or the board. And then secondly, it's not a prayer. It's just a Bible verse. So these are, this is probably an easily one case or should have been or should be under the old

standard. Under the new standard, it's really, I just don't understand where the school district is coming from. Obviously, you know, you can't guarantee an outcome with judges, they're people, and sometimes, you know, cases can take on odd lives. But this seems to be a pretty straightforward situation. And I just don't really understand where they're going from, on the, this on this issue. I don't understand why they think the school district is responsible for what one board member is saying during their personal board commentary. Yeah. Oh, you mentioned Coach

Kennedy and just the impact that his case has had within the legal system and specifically around the understanding of freedom of religion and especially within our school systems. Of course, here at the Daily Signal, we've been really privileged to cover Coach Kennedy's case. We actually just had him on the podcast recently, so I encourage our listeners to check out that interview, him talking about his new book, Average Joe. But, you know, Hiram, this case is, it's ongoing. Where do you think stand right now? Well, right now we have sued, and they've been served, and so they have an opportunity to respond and an answer. And then, you know, we want to try to get to a resolution as soon as possible.

I mean, this has been going on for some months now. and we want to get some clarity. We think this is pretty straightforward. There's not a lot of discussions about what's really happening. It's just what's the law on this. I certainly hope it doesn't take eight years like the Coach Kennedy case. That was terrible that we had to take that long, but obviously ultimately winning.

My hope is that very shortly we'll get to the school district will come to their senses and realize that this case, cases is, you know, probably, you know, nine times easier for us than the Coach Kennedy case was in terms of where the law is already. And it's just not worth fighting for them. Yeah. Now, Heather, as the case moves forward, you're continuing to serve on the school board, correct? Correct. Yeah. And why did you originally decide that you wanted to run for school board? Well, honestly, before, before COVID and everything, I didn't know what a school board was. And so I saw, started to get involved with a group of moms. We started to understand what the school board does,

and we didn't realize how much of an impact they have on our children's education. And so we started to hear from other parents. We started to hear from students and staff. And so I just, you know, was, I prayed to God. I was like, what do you want me to do? I don't, I've never done this before. and it just, he really, I think, opened that door and really encouraged me to take on such a big, important role to take on for children's education. And so that's pretty much why I got involved. And I'm very thankful for everybody's help and for this opportunity. And how many kids do you have in the school system? I have four kids in the school system. Wow. Okay. So yes, very, very involved. Yeah. Why, I mean, you're on the school board, you're a mom, you're a wife, you're busy. Why, though, is it worth it to you to say, no, I'm going to, I'm going to fight for this to be able to quote scripture at a school board meeting, and I'm going to take the time to fight this legal battle?

You know, I think it's important to me because it goes back to that it saying his words out loud at these board meetings when I meet. making such big decisions, saying those words, it really gives me that strength to do these type of roles. And if that isn't there, then what else, where does it go? I mean, that just disappears then, being able to do that. And so I think it's really important to seek legal help and have that opportunity to see, like Hiram said, what is the law? Because that it just is mind-blowing to me that that is, you know, being pushed down that you can't do that, that you can't say averse to give you that strength when you're in such an important role that makes big decisions, especially when it comes to children. So that's, you know, that's why I think it's an important thing to do. Hiram, looking at this case and moving forward, are there any specific challenges that you and your team at First Liberty Institute are.

are foreseeing? Well, I think the biggest challenge that we that we always have is that, you know, at First Liberty, we're client first and cause second. So our goal, like our goal with the Coach Kennedy case was we just wanted to drag them to the negotiating table. And obviously, we failed. For eight years, we failed and then had to slug it out all the way to the Supreme Court. Our goal is to get the school district in a room. and just, you know, get this resolved and be able to move on. You know, that's the goal. Whether we'll be able to accomplish that is largely dependent upon them.

But I sure hope that this school district and other school districts across the country sort of received the message on the Coach Kennedy case, that it's just this is not a good idea to fight over these issues, especially now that the law has been clarified. and let's just come to the table and get this resolved. It's really not that big of a deal from the school district's perspective. I mean, why do they care that Heather is reading a Bible verse during her personal commentary time? The board comment time, I don't understand why they care.

There's so many things. There's so many challenges, you know, not to step on Heather's toes in terms of her agenda, like her campaign and why she was there. But I mean, I assume that Heather showed up. And from what I understand, Heather showed up because there's a lot of things to do that are really important for the school district. And they need to be focusing on these things.

And the fact that they would be fighting against this is just really ridiculous. And we need to get to the table and get it resolved. Yeah. Heather, I want to allow you to have the final word here. What is your message to other parents who are either serving on school boards or who maybe are going to those school board meetings, who are contesting policies within their schools that maybe they don't agree with,

who are trying to be a voice within the public education system in defense of their kids. Just what words of encouragement would you offer to parents that might be facing similar situations or people who might have wanted to give a prayer or read scripture at a school board meeting or another public forum, but who are worried that something like what has happened to you might happen to them. You know, I would just go back to if, if God is calling on them to do that, then I answer to God. That's my number one thing. And if that is what God is calling on their hearts, then that is what we're told to do. We're told to listen to him because he's got us.

He's not going to let us falter. He's not going to let anything come between, you know, him and me. And so that's what I would just give that message to anybody that is wanting to do that. And specifically for parents, I think, you know, just really getting involved. Because before, I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know all of the decisions that were being made with children's education. And so I think that is the biggest thing is that, as a parent you really need to be involved and to see what is going on because things that go on

can happen very quickly and then you don't know how it happened and I think that's the biggest message for parents. Heather Rooks and Hiram Sasser, First Liberty Institute. Thank you both so much your time today. Really appreciate it. We're going to be following this case as it moves forward. I encourage everyone to visit the First Liberty Institute website to make sure you're getting the latest briefs and updates in regard to this case. But thank you. Both really appreciate your time today.

All right. Thank you so much. And that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for being with us on the Daily Signal podcast. Make sure that you check out our evening show today. Every day around 5 p.m. We bring you the top news of the day. These are the headlines that you need to know to be informed about what is happening in our world and right here in Washington, D.C. Also make sure to take a moment to subscribe to the Daily Signal wherever you like. like to listen to podcasts. We are across all podcast platforms and so appreciate when you take a moment to leave us a five-star rating and review. Thanks again for being with us today. We'll see you right back here around 5 p.m. for our top news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to

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