The ACLU and the ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit against the Smith County School System for violating the separation of church and state on Monday. According to the lawsuit, four students who are atheists have had to contend with school officials promoting Christianity through official prayers, Bible distributions, religious posters, and even a giant cross painted in one of the school’s athletic facilities.

We asked our three high school clients in this case — Harleigh, Leyna and Pyper — to tell us about their experience, their friendship, and why they decided to sue their school district.

What has your school environment been like for you?

Harleigh: Overall, it’s really uncomfortable. You feel like you don’t fit in at all.

Leyna: To be honest, it’s kind of awkward having to deal with everybody making it seem like you have to believe in one thing, just like them.

Pyper: Mostly it’s just uncomfortable and feeling like you don’t fit in.

Atheists and nonreligious people are one of the most rapidly growing groups in the U.S., yet they still face significant mistrust and discrimination. Are you worried about this lawsuit revealing to your peers and those in your community that you’re atheists?

Harleigh: I feel like if we do, we’ll be seen as mistrusting or misleading, or a bad influence. I haven’t really talked about it except with my close friends, to be honest, and most of them are atheists.

Leyna: I don’t really hide it because it’s not really something that I should hide. Everybody can express their religion. Why shouldn’t I be able to express the fact that I’m an atheist?

Pyper: I’m not really that worried about it because most people already know that I’m not religious.

How has your friendship helped you get through a school environment that has been hostile to, or at least not very welcoming to, non-Christians?

Harleigh: You kind of have someone to talk about it with, you know?

Leyna: It’s definitely more reassuring to know that we’re able to talk about it. I can’t just look at somebody else and be like, “Oh, this is kind of wrong, what [school officials] are doing, because most people will look back at me like, “What are you talking about? This is normal.”

Pyper: Yeah, you always have some to talk to about it. And then at school when something happens [with promoting religion], you have someone to tell.

Pyper, you are a member of the girls’ soccer team. Your coach has directed team prayers before every game. What was your initial reaction when it first happened? 

Pyper: I was kind of confused on why we’re doing it because not everyone is religious on my team, and I feel like [the coach] knows that, so I was confused.

Did you ever think about telling the coach you didn’t like it or that it was inappropriate?

Pyper: I thought about that but I didn’t want to be benched or kicked off the team.

Harleigh, as a member of the marching band, you have to attend every football game, and all the home games start out with a prayer over the public address system. What type of message do you think that sends to you, the other students, and the community members who are gathered for the game?

Harleigh: I feel like it’s almost like it’s coercing everybody to be the same. I feel uncomfortable because I feel like I’m the only one sitting there not participating.

Leyna and Pyper, when you were in middle school, two school officials who were responsible for promoting religion also made some anti-LGBTQ remarks. One told fifth and sixth graders last year that same-sex relationships would not be tolerated. Another would scold students who discussed same-sex crushes. What was your reaction?

Pyper:  I was just kind of shocked that the straight people can express their feelings about a boy or a girl but LGBTQ people can’t do the same.

What are you hoping will happen as a result of this lawsuit?

Harleigh: I want to feel like I can go to school and not feel like I’m not a part of what is happening. Or go to a football game and not feel uncomfortable for the first 20 minutes. I want to do normal teenage things at school without feeling like I don’t fit in.

Pyper: Just wanting to fit in. When you’re not bowing your head, people look at you weird.

Leyna: I respect other people’s religion, and I would like it if everyone else would respect my beliefs.

What advice would you give to other teens that are facing similar circumstances at their public schools? 

Harleigh: Find a good group of friends that you do fit in with that have the same beliefs as you and don’t feels so coerced by everybody else.

Pyper: Probably just not be scared to speak up to say what you believe in.

When you three aren’t doing school activities or standing up for your rights, what do you do for fun?

Harleigh: I like to draw a lot and paint. I’m into surrealism.

Pyper: I like to take pictures.

You’re a photographer for the school yearbook, right?

Pyper: Yes, ma’am.

Are you hoping that this lawsuit will make it easier to attend school events as part of your yearbook photography duties?

Pyper: Yes, ma’am.

Leyna, what do you enjoy doing when you’re not busy with school and fighting for your rights?

Leyna: I usually do my makeup or I cook something.

What would you say to someone in this situation who can’t find a group of like-minded friends?

Pyper: Don’t try to be someone you’re not just to have a group of friends.

Heather L. Weaver, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief

President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine spoke on the phone. The president insists the call was “perfect.” Others are concerned that, during the call, the president intimated he would withhold financial aid appropriated to Ukraine unless the Ukrainian president agreed to investigate former-Vice President Joe Biden, a political rival of the president.

How do we even know about any of this? A government employee who knew of the phone call became concerned about the possibility that the president was improperly using his office for his own political gain, and blew the whistle. The public learned the content of the whistleblower’s allegations because another government employee leaked the story to the press. Once again, the American public benefited from the bravery of its public servants, risking their livelihoods, careers, and families to expose government waste, fraud, and abuse.

President Trump’s reaction has been both predictable and terrifying. Using his preferred method of official communication — Twitter — the president called the whistleblower a spy and suggested they should be treated as they would have been “in the old days,” presumably referring to execution. He called repeatedly for the whistleblower’s identity to be revealed, a well-worn tactic designed to intimidate the whistleblower and any other official that could provide support to their account. And Trump isn’t alone. Senator Rand Paul also called upon the media to reveal the whistleblower’s identity.

It’s worth wondering why these kinds of tactics are still permissible.

Sen. Paul has pointed out that nothing stops him from revealing the whistleblower’s identity. He’s right, and that’s a huge problem. It’s one of many big problems facing any public servant, but especially a national security and intelligence community member, who wants to report the waste, fraud, or abuse they witness in our government. Intelligence community whistleblowers currently have no access to independent and meaningful due process, while other federal employees do. There is no law protecting their identities from disclosure and they have no protections from retaliatory investigations.

Congress must fix these problems. That’s why the Project on Government Oversight, the ACLU and 15 other organizations, including the Government Accountability Project, and Whistleblowers of America, sent a letter to Congress this week calling for them to seize this moment to change the law for the better and to do everything in their power to protect the whistleblower’s identity.

And that’s just a start.

Increasing protections for whistleblowers that disclose through the available government processes is helpful, but it ignores whistleblowers that bring what they know directly to the public. Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the Pentagon Papers, and Edward Snowden, also risked their lives and careers to inform the public of massive abuses of government power. They deserve protection too.

They were both charged with violating the Espionage Act, which criminalizes unauthorized disclosures of classified information. That law makes no distinction between public servants that bring evidence of crimes occurring at the highest levels of government to journalists, and officials that steal government secrets and sell them to foreign spies. That makes no sense.

Luckily, the fix is simple. Congress should allow those accused of violating the Espionage Act to raise the defense that their disclosure served the public interest. That small change would mean a far more accountable government, because government employees that witness misdeeds would be empowered to say what they saw without fear of retaliation.  

Americans need and deserve information about what their government is doing, now more than ever. Congress must act to protect those within the government who blow the whistle.

Kate Ruane, Senior Legislative Counsel, ACLU

For more than two years, the ACLU has been fighting a Trump administration policy that prevents unaccompanied immigrant minors in federal care from accessing abortion. We had previously won in the lower court, securing a preliminary block on the policy. And last week, the Trump administration chose not to challenge that ruling and ask the Supreme Court to review the case—a real victory in our fight for justice for the Janes.

We first filed the case in October 2017 on behalf of Jane Doe, a fearless young immigrant woman who fought the Trump administration’s attempt to deny her right to end her pregnancy. Jane’s win, and her bravery, laid the foundation for our success in the months that followed in obtaining court orders that blocked the government’s attempts to prevent other young immigrant women from making their own decisions about whether to continue or end a pregnancy.

In March 2018, a federal district court issued an order temporarily blocking the government from enforcing its abortion ban against all pregnant immigrant minors in its custody, finding the ban to be unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade and allowing the case to proceed as a class action.

This past summer, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, finding that the administration’s policy “functions as an across-the-board ban on access to abortion” for pregnant immigrant minors. In its ruling, the Court unanimously “reject[ed] the government’s position that its denial of abortion access can be squared with Supreme Court precedent.”

The Trump administration had until November 8^th to ask the Supreme Court to overturn our lower court win and allow it to resume its policy of forcing these teens to remain pregnant against their will. But last Friday came and went, and the administration filed nothing. 

We’re relieved that the government did not appeal. The government’s failure to ask the Supreme Court to review the injunction means that the temporary protections we’ve secured for the Janes will remain in place.

But this does not mean we can rest easy. The case isn’t over — we’re still fighting in the district court for final, permanent relief that would close the door on the government’s efforts to implement its unconstitutional policy for good. And the Jane Doe case is just one vector of a full-scale effort by the Trump Administration, along with other federal and state politicians, to dismantle our hard-won reproductive rights.

Over the past year, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Utah and Alabama have all passed bans on abortion. The ACLU has blocked all of these abortion bans from taking effect, and abortion is still legal in all 50 states. But politicians across the country continue to push these bans in the hopes that the Supreme Court will use one of them to overturn Roe v. Wade.

At the federal level, the Trump administration has sought to strip millions of low-income people who rely on Title X, the nation’s family planning program, of their ability to access comprehensive, high-quality reproductive and family planning care. It has promulgated rules that would have (absent a court order)  permitted employers and universities to deny their employees and students insurance coverage for contraception due to moral objections.  And it has issued other rules — which we just blocked from taking effect — that would have allowed health care providers to refuse to provide critical health care services based on personal religious or moral beliefs.

As the old saying goes, the measure of a nation is reflected in how it treats its most vulnerable members. Nothing is beyond the pale for this administration in its attacks on reproductive health care in general, and immigrants in particular, whether it be ripping children away from their parents at the border, forcing them to stay in squalid, dangerous conditions in Mexico, or denying them access to critical medical care.

The government’s ban on abortion for immigrant minors is just another attempt to strip some of the most marginalized people in our society of their constitutional rights — in this case, young immigrant women of color. Just as your ability to get an abortion should not depend on where you live, neither should it depend on your immigration status, age, national origin, race, gender identity, or economic circumstances. We won’t let up in our fight on multiple fronts to ensure abortion remains safe and legal for everyone in America, including back in the district court, where we will resume our efforts on behalf of the Janes to ensure that this administration’s unconstitutional policy is struck down for good.

Meagan Burrows, Staff Attorney, Reproductive Freedom Project, ACLU