Colorado school can limit religious memorials, court says. (AU Bulletin).

A federal appeals court has ruled that Columbine High School, where a shooting led to 15 deaths in 1999, may prohibit religious ceramic tiles intended for a school memorial.

In the wake of the tragedy, the school offered students a chance to decorate 4-inch square tiles for a memorial display. The school, however, limited the messages that Could be expressed.

A group of parents of slain students, who wanted religious tiles to represent their families, filed a federal lawsuit. With assistance from the Rutherford Institute, the parents argued that school limits on religious messages were a violation of the First Amendment's protection of free speech. School officials noted, however, that they had to maintain some control over tile content in order to limit offensive messages. For example, administrators said, tiles with symbols of anarchy and a head dripping blood were also excluded.

While a lower court initially ruled in the parents' favor, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned that ruling on June 27 and concluded in Fleming v. Jefferson County School District that school officials were correct to limit the content of the memorial.

The appeals court held that the school must be given some discretion over the tiles' content or it could be required to post tiles with inflammatory statements such as "God is Hate."

"When posed with such a choice, schools may very well elect not to sponsor speech at all, thereby limiting speech instead of increasing it," the ruling said.

The Rutherford Institute, a Religious Right-oriented legal group, reportedly plans to take this case to the Supreme Court.