First and foremost, Frank O. Carroll lll is a busy pastor who shepherds his congregation at Trinity Apostolic Faith Church in Katy. He’s also an attorney and was involved in a suit of huge impact regarding Christian families and the religious rights of school children.
He says of his church, “We believe that every church should impact their community for the good. Christian principles are without compromise and becoming an extension of Christ is something we are all called to do. We are a unique fellowship, reaching our world one person at a time. Our families come from many different experiences, yet together we find the common bond of the unity in Christ. As a conservative Pentecostal church, our primary purpose is to share Christ. We welcome you to come learn and serve with us.”
For over one hundred years, Trinity Apostolic Faith Church has been reaching out to the families and community of Katy through prayer and preaching and teaching the Gospel of Christ. These roots reach deeply into historic Katy. From the humble beginnings of meeting in homes in 1905, to the present facility on the corner of Avenue D and Tenth Street in old town Katy, the church has reached out not only to those of the community, but to countless missions around the world. The first place of worship was the old one-room school house that was purchased in 1909. This served the congregation until a new white church was built in 1942. The present church was completed in December of 1964 with the addition of a Family Life Center, children’s church area and classrooms in 1983. A chapel, offices, and storage area were completed in 1987.
Pastor Carroll is also a husband to April and a father to Bryant, age 6 and Lincoln, age 11 months. As an attorney, his defense of faith and free speech has literally up-ended an entrenched public school policy that muted religious expression during classroom holiday parties. The results are astounding, and many parents may not be aware of the new religious freedoms their children now have due to a case entitled Morgan vs. Swanson.
As many parents with children enrolled in public schools may know, there was a time when “holiday parties” excluded any mention of Christ, regardless of the fact that our Lord put “Christ” in the word “Christmas.” No stickers of the nativity, no pencils heralding “Merry Christmas,’ and no cookies adorned with the star of Bethlehem were allowed in classroom parties. These parties were forcefully secular, despite the wishes of so many parents and children.
This all changed thanks to a lawsuit derived in Plano, Texas. The result? Your publicly-enrolled students now can celebrate their faith openly in school during classroom parties. The facts and decision follow:
Morgan v. Swanson: A Victory for Students
Facts/Issues: In Plano, Texas, starting in 2001, school district officials began refusing to allow elementary school students to distribute material that had a religious viewpoint to their classmates. At one 2001 “winter break” party, an elementary school principal, Lynn Swanson, citing orders from district officials, confiscated a student’s goody bags because they included a pencil with the legend “Jesus Is the Reason for the Season.”
At a 2003 party, Swanson and other school officials took away a student’s gift bags because they contained candy cane–shaped pens with an attached card explaining the religious origins of candy canes. Swanson also forbade students from writing “Merry Christmas” on cards sent to retirement homes.
At another school in 2004, the principal, Jackie Bomchill, prohibited a student from giving tickets to a Christian drama to her friends. She threatened to call the police when the same student asked to distribute pencils with “Jesus Loves Me This I Know, For the Bible Tells Me So” during her class birthday party. The principal also threatened to expel the young girl if she attempted to distribute “Jesus pencils” again. The principal did allow her to give out pencils embellished with a moon design. As a result of these incidents, parents sued, claiming that their children had been subject to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
The primary allegation of the suit was that the principals had in the past and continued in the present to enforce a ban on the distribution of religious messages by students on school grounds. The principals sought dismissal of the suit on the grounds of qualified immunity. They argued that there was no unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination based on religion because elementary school students do not possess free speech rights within the school environment and, alternatively, that such a right was not clearly established at the time the principals enforced the ban on distribution of religious materials. A federal district court in Texas denied the principals’ motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity.
Ruling/Rationale: The inquiry was limited to determining ”whether it was clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct that elementary school students have a First Amendment right to be free from religious-viewpoint discrimination while at school.”
The panel rejected the principals’ argument that neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor the Fifth Circuit “has ever extended First Amendment ‘freedom of speech’ protection to the distribution of non-curricular materials in public elementary schools.” Relying on the Supreme Court’s holdings in W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943) and Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the panel emphasized that the First Amendment covers all public school students. ”[F]or 67 years, the Supreme Court has recognized that school officials are subject to the Constitution, and the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment is no exception.”
The panel also rejected the principals’ argument that the law in this regard was not clearly established. Barnette and Tinker, as well as Fifth Circuit precedent, federal regulatory guidance and Plano Independent School District (PISD) policy, all favor the conclusion that the law is clearly established that viewpoint discrimination against religious speech in elementary schools is unconstitutional.
“We hold that the First Amendment protects all students from viewpoint discrimination against private, non-disruptive, student-to-student speech,” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod wrote in a part of her opinion, joined by nine of the 16 participating judges. “Therefore, the principals’ alleged conduct—discriminating against student speech solely on the basis of religious viewpoint—is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.”
The 5th Circuit court’s Sept. 27 decision in Morgan v. Swanson includes eight separate opinions covering a total of 100 pages. We applaud Pastor Carroll for sharing this ground-breaking information.
Trinity Apostolic Faith Church can be reached at 281-391-3310. The address is 5900 Tenth St. Katy, Texas 77493. Visit the website at katytafc.com.
