Litigation, Religious Freedom and the Providence Schools

Robert Zimmerman

This is a followup on a March 2023 blacklist column. Though the school district had previously welcomed the Good News Clubs, a Christian afterschool program run by the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), to use school facilities for meetings, in 2021 school district officials blacklisted it without explanation, and then stonewalled CEF officials as well as the school’s principal (who wanted the club in his school) for almost two years. Meanwhile, the district was allowing many other clubs, some very leftwing, access to facilities.

In March CEF enlisted the legal non-profit Liberty Counsel and filed a lawsuit [pdf] against the school district as well as its superintendent, Dr. Javier Montanez.

The lawsuit had demanded that CEF be given immediate access to district facilities “equal to access provide to similarly situation nonreligious organizations,” payment of “actual damages in accordance with the evidence at trial,” nominal damages of $100, and payment of any legal costs.