American citizens have the right to criticize their government. We can express our disapproval by speaking or writing against the government. We can express our disapproval by voting representatives out of office.
The First Amendment protects unpopular speech, including speech that elected officials and bureaucrats don’t like.
Rev. Gady Youmans is the executive director of the Sweet Onion Christian Learning Center in Vidalia, Georgia. He runs a volunteer program that provides release-time religious instruction for students at Vidalia High School.
According to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Rev. Youmans’s legal counsel, the Vidalia school board last year proposed to increase property taxes to help Vidalia City Schools. Rev. Youmans expressed opposition to the proposal on his Facebook account.
But exercising his constitutional rights made Rev. Youmans a target. In retaliation, the school district investigated him and informed him that they’d no longer permit him to operate the release-time program for Vidalia High School students.
Rev. Youmans filed a lawsuit against the school district, the superintendent, and school board members.
A federal court just ordered the school district to reinstate the program while the lawsuit against the others moves through the courts.
“Every American has the right to publicly criticize the government—that’s what makes the First Amendment guarantee of free speech so special and the envy of the world,” said Mercer Martin, the ADF lawyer who argued the case in court.
