Victory Points

A district parent reported that Ash Grover High School sponsored and advertised a baccalaureate ceremony on May 13. The school advertised and promoted the ceremony alongside official school graduation events on its official Ash Grove High School Facebook page. The advertisement included a quote from the bible as well as a photograph from the church where the ceremony took place. The event was also added to the official online school calendar.

The program featured the school’s logo and trademark colors. The program’s design, along with the persistent promotion by the school, strongly suggested that the school was involved in organizing the baccalaureate ceremony and may have contributed school resources or staff time to the event.

After receiving a letter from FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence,  the district reached out to legal representative Emily Omohundro. Omohundro informed FFRF that the district did not sponsor or plan the event. “The district did not intend for this advertisement to convey a favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity above all faiths,” she wrote. “Going forward, the district agrees that it will no longer share information regarding this event or include it on the district’s school calendar so as to avoid any indication of sponsorship or involvement in this event by the district.”

When FFRF voiced concern over a Valley View Public Schools system sports coach using her position to promote her religion onto her student athletes, the Arkansas district took the right steps to remove all religious practices from the team.

A district parent informed the state/church watchdog that the archery coach at Valley View Intermediate School has a pattern and practice of leading students in Christian prayer before tournaments and official archery events, such as a recent awards ceremony. Audio provided to FFRF from this ceremony confirmed that the coach and what appeared to be a coach-selected student led the entire audience, including other students, in an explicitly Christian prayer.

“Here, the archery coach is undeniably pushing her personal religious beliefs onto students by coercing the entire archery team to participate in prayers as part of official school-sponsored activities,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes. “The coach is blatantly crossing the constitutional line and violating student-athletes’ First Amendment rights.”

Thankfully, FFRF’s work paid off, and the district took active steps to ensure that participation in the school’s archery team would not cost students their rights.

Rebecca Worsham, the district’s legal representative, wrote back to confirm that the district had conducted an investigation into the situation. This included interviews of the head archery coach, volunteer parent coaches and a number of student participants.

“The investigation confirmed that prayer occurred in connection with certain archery activities during the past season. It also confirmed that this practice long predated the current coach’s involvement as a district employee and was not undertaken with any awareness that it raised constitutional concerns,” Worsham wrote. “Upon being made aware of those concerns, the coach immediately acknowledged them and confirmed that she will not lead, direct or organize prayer for or with students during school-sponsored archery activities going forward.”

Worsham also confirmed that the coach was given the instructions not to lead, initiate, direct, solicit or participate in leading students in prayer via writing, as well as providing the head coach and the program’s volunteer coaches with guidance on the constitutional limits applicable to religious expression by school staff.

Oklahoma has now done the bare minimum a decent state can do for children: It has stopped handing them marriage licenses.

Senate Bill 504 became law on May 13 despite Gov. Kevin Stitt’s refusal to sign it. When it takes effect on Nov. 1, Oklahoma will require every person getting married to be at least 18 — with no exceptions. That makes Oklahoma the 17th U.S. state, plus Washington, D.C., to completely ban child marriage. The bill passed the Senate 45–0, but only cleared the House 51–36, a grim reminder that “do not let adults marry children” is still treated as controversial in too many state capitols.

The FFRF Action Fund pushed for this win along with other coalition partners. Before the bill became law, we urged Oklahomans to call on Stitt to close the parental-consent loophole that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to marry, a loophole that left young people, especially girls, vulnerable to forced marriage and trapped in abusive relationships they were often too young to legally exit. It will come as no surprise to our readers that child marriage is often tied to extremist patriarchal religious norms.

A just, secular society protects children and holds abusers accountable. It does not give abusers a legal shortcut to marry their victims.

Child marriage is not some faraway relic. Between 2000 and 2021, more than 314,000 children were legally married in the United States, some as young as 10 years old. Almost 90 percent of those children were girls, most of them married to adult men. At least 66,415 of those marriages involved a child too young to legally consent to sex or an age gap that would have made sex a crime under state law but for the marriage.

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After hearing from FFRF, a bus driver in the Sainte Genevieve R-11 School District in Missouri will no longer play religious music while students are being driven to and from a district high school.

A parent of a Sainte Genevieve High School student reported that the school bus driver was playing Christian music every day while transporting students. According to the report, the driver was playing religious music loud enough that students cannot help but hear it, and a video provided to FFRF by the parent confirmed the claim.

The parent stated that school administrators and district officials had already spoken to the driver and warned her that she cannot play worship music while students are present, but the driver continued to do so.

“Playing Christian music over the bus radio for children to hear is troubling for all students and their families who are not Christian,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the district.

After receiving FFRF’s letter, the district’s attorney reached out via phone to confirm that action had been taken. The legal representative stated that the school again discussed the religious music with the driver and warned her to put a stop to the practice while transporting students. The district reported that they do not anticipate the issue being a problem going forward.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its co-plaintiffs have secured a major First Amendment victory after a federal court’s ruling that a Ten Commandments monument at the Arkansas Capitol is unconstitutional and must be removed. In a sweeping decision issued March 31, U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker struck down the state law mandating the monument and ordered that it be taken down, concluding that both the law and the display violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The ruling marks the culmination of nearly eight years of litigation brought by FFRF, the American Humanist Association, the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers and a diverse group of Arkansas plaintiffs alongside a parallel challenge by the ACLU of Arkansas. Separately, the Satanic Temple and its members had brought First Amendment and Equal Protection claims. “Based on the undisputed record evidence,” the court held, “the Display Act and the Ten Commandments Monument violate the Establishment Clause.”

San Springs Public Schools system in Oklahoma stop a high school football coach from leading students in prayer before games. After receiving a report from member William Dusenberry, FFRF learned that the head football coach at Charles Page High school had reportedly led student-athletes in the Lord’s Prayer before a game in December 2025. In order to protect student rights, FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the district, calling for an investigation to put a stop to coaching staff  pushing prayer on students.

“When coaches lead students in prayer and direct or encourage them to pray, the student-athletes will no doubt feel that participating in that prayer is essential to pleasing their coach and being viewed as a team player,” Lawrence wrote.

A federal district court issued a permanent injunction on March 16 prohibiting the school district defendants from implementing an Arkansas law that requires all public schools to permanently display a government-chosen, Protestant version of the Ten Commandments. The Freedom From Religion Foundation was part of a coalition of secular groups that represented the plaintiffs in the case.

In his decision in Stinson v. Fayetteville School District No. 1, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Brooks wrote, “Act 573 must be permanently enjoined. Failing to do so would violate the Establishment Clause rights of all Arkansas public-school children and their parents and also violate plaintiffs’ Free Exercise rights.”

Ruling that the law, which sought the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom and library in the state, would lead to unconstitutional religious coercion of the child plaintiffs and interfere with their parents’ rights to direct their children’s religious education, Brooks explained: “Act 573’s purpose is only to display a sacred, religious text in a prominent place in every public-school classroom. And the only reason to display a sacred, religious text in every classroom is to proselytize to children. The state has said the quiet part out loud.”

Brooks added: “Nothing could possibly justify hanging the Ten Commandments — with or without historical context — in a calculus, chemistry, French or woodworking class, to name a few. And the words ‘curriculum,’ ‘school board,’ ‘teacher’ or ‘educate’ don’t appear anywhere in Act 573. Accordingly, there is no need to strain our minds to imagine a constitutional display mandated by Act 573. One doesn’t exist.”

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FFRF made sure that seniors at the McAuley Senior Center in Hot Springs, Ark., were no longer being forced to pray in order to receive their meals.

FFRF learned that employees at the center were organizing prayers before each meal. Additionally, seniors were expected to stand and were not being given food until the prayer had been delivered.

“Federal regulations prohibit senior centers receiving federal funding to engage in religious activities at government-sponsored functions,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle J. Steinberg wrote to the senior center.

A concerned parent reported that on Nov. 13, 2025, the Hannibal High School Girls’ Softball Coach directed a student to lead all attendees in prayer at the softball team’s award banquet. While the student led the prayer, the coach and the assistant coach reportedly stood and bowed their heads with the students and parents in attendance. The parent who contacted FFRF stated that this is the second year in a row that the coach promoted religion while acting in his official capacity as coach. Additionally, the assistant coach had a pattern and practice of praying with students before and after games while serving as a representative of the district.

The parent stated that they and their child felt “obligated” to participate in the banquet prayer because the vocal majority of the team was religious, and they feared retaliation. Further, the student reported that the prayers made them uncomfortable, but they participated to avoid losing opportunities to receive awards or have the coach speak to college coaches on their behalf.

FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the district, and the district took immediate corrective action. Superintendent Ritchie Kracht emailed FFRF to detail an investigation that confirmed FFRF’s report. Kracht explained that he spoke with both coaches to make sure they fully understand that the prayers were unacceptable.

“The head coach will ensure this will not happen again in his program,” Kracht wrote. “We are also educating the rest of our coaching staff in all our activities to ensure this does not happen again.”

A district employee reported multiple constitutional violations at Highland High School, including on Sept. 5, 2025, when the Student Council president began a mandatory pep rally with a Christian prayer.

The same student again led the student body, faculty and visiting community members in prayer to begin a Patriot’s Day memorial ceremony on the same day, at which attendance was also mandatory for students and staff. The student’s prayer included multiple references to “Lord,” and “God,” and the student-led prayers were reportedly pre-planned.

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Multiple community members reported that Irving Elementary School was organizing, promoting and opting all students into a religious club, Kids for Christ. A complainant stated that on Sept. 23, 2025, their child came home with a form to opt out of attending a Kids for Christ club that was meeting every Thursday morning at school in students’ “designated pods.” The form had been handed out to students by school staff. The form additionally included explicitly religious imagery such as the bible and advertises religious events, including “See You at the Pole.” Further, the form instructed parents to opt out of the club by returning the signed form to the school office.

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with three other groups, have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 18 families to stop all Texas public school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom. This lawsuit affects about 5 million school children.

The suit, which was filed on Dec. 2, does not include the more than two dozen Texas school districts that are already involved in active litigation or subject to an injunction from displaying the Ten Commandments in every classroom. It is the first class action lawsuit FFRF has ever been involved in.

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