A Minnesota school board says its new ban on rainbow stickers is about staying neutral. Asked why Christian symbols weren't banned too, board chair John Steffl said, "I'm a Christian so that doesn't bother me," and now students are suing.
As reported by John Russell for LGBTQ Nation, a majority faction of the Minnesota school board rushed through a controversial policy to strip classrooms of rainbow stickers. Teachers had displayed the stickers for years to create a supportive environment for their students.
The immediate result of the board's policy was chaos, the ban used as justification in tearing down stickers and bullying students.
Now the students are taking it to court.
Two students and their parents partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union to file a lawsuit against the district and four board members.
The board members claimed the ban was necessary to maintain neutrality. The lawsuit dismantles that argument.
The complaint points out that the policy was introduced without public notice, completely bypassing standard open-meeting rules. It also cites internal text messages where board members exchanged anti-LGBTQ links, arguing the ban was driven by personal animus rather than neutral governance.
The school board thought they could use bureaucratic loopholes to quietly erase symbols of support. Instead, they sparked a massive civil rights lawsuit led by the very students they were elected to serve.
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