A Colorado high school senior who said she felt called to action after Charlie Kirk’s assassination won a legal challenge against her school district that allowed her to depict a parable from the Bible in her paid parking spot despite the district’s previous ban on ‘religious imagery.’
Sophia Shumaker, a senior at Rampart High School in Colorado Springs, had initially requested her paid spot be allowed to depict a shepherd, staff, and sheep in reference to Jesus overlooking his flock as well as an additional reference 1 Corinthians 13:4, which in the New International Version of the Bible reads “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
School administrators rejected the design, citing a district policy prohibiting any reference to religious imagery. Of course, while school officials are wont to quickly put the kibosh on Christian references, it is impossible to ignore secular religiosity in most government education centers these days, with overt and even school-endorsed ideas around countless progressive agendas such as LGBT pride or expressions of racism in America.
Schumaker said the school forced her to opt for a different design, but the communication with school officials left a bad taste in her mouth. After all, as she was forced to downplay her identity, she saw other students freely exhibit their own. Speaking in an interview with Fox News Digital, the courageous disciple pushed back, in part inspired by the words of the late Charlie Kirk.
“I was honestly upset just because other people were getting to express themselves how they wanted and Christianity is my whole identity and I just really wanted to express that,” she said in the interview. “I had been watching Charlie Kirk for as long as I can remember. He’s been the one that really influenced my religion and speaking out about what’s right and stuff like that. So he was really big on my heart throughout this whole process.”
With inspiration from her faith and the legendary conservative Christian, the Colorado high school student fought back, enlisting help from an organization devoted to defending religious liberties. The group, First Liberty Institute, sent a letter to the school district pointing out that the paid parking spot would not only reflect private speech which was being suppressed, but that within the district similar accommodations had already been made.
“The district’s inconsistent policies demonstrate that the seniors’ messages on the parking spots in Academy School District 20, including those at Rampart, are private speech, not government speech..Therefore, the district cannot deny Ms. Shumaker’s private, religious speech without violating the First Amendment,” a letter to the district’s superintendent and high school principal said in part.
The letter would add that the denial was a violation of the student’s protected speech under the First Amendment. A senior counsel at First Liberty outlined how the district was violating her rights and highlighted how religious speech can still legally occur on public grounds.
This is not the first story reported by The Christian Tribune as it relates to First Liberty defending a student’s rights to display their religious identity in school parking lots. Back in August, the Tribune covered the story of Sabrina Steffans, who faced a nearly identical conundrum in New York.
In that case, Steffans won a short legal battle with her district to display verses of John 14:6 and Jeremiah 29:11. Those verses say, respectively, “Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” and “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Featured image from First Liberty Institute