A Texas state judge issued a temporary injunction last week allowing a group of cheerleaders to continue to display banners with Christian messages at high school football games.
The injunction replaces a temporary restraining order that has permitted the 11 cheerleaders to display their banners in recent weeks.
The judge set a trial date for next June for the lawsuit filed by the cheerleaders, with the aid of the Plano, Texas-based Liberty Institute. It argues that the Kountze High School cheerleaders, a student-run squad, selected the messages independently and have a free speech right to display them.
The Kountze Independent School District, northeast of Houston, had told the cheerleaders last month that they could not display the banners after receiving a complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., on behalf of an anonymous local resident.
The district has argued that the banners were akin to the student-initiated prayers before football games that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in a 2000 case from Texas known as Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe.
