Supreme Court to Hear Case of Silenced Georgia Christian College Student
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving a Georgia college student who was silenced, more than once, from sharing his Christian faith with fellow students on campus.
Chike Uzuegbunam was a junior at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia, during the summer of 2016. While passing out religious material to students, he was approached by campus police who advised that he needed permission to evangelize and that it must be done in a “free speech zone,” Atlanta News Now reports.
Uzuegbunam complied with their orders but was approached again by officials who told him to stop preaching on campus because someone had complained.
“College officials didn’t really care about where I was standing; they just didn’t like what I was saying. So, they invoked these policies to silence me,” Uzuegbunam said.
He filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court in Atlanta against the college, insisting that his constitutional rights had been violated.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit religious freedom law firm that represents Uzuegbunam, argues that courts should hold colleges accountable when they violate students’ First Amendment rights.
“Government officials must be held responsible for enacting and enforcing policies that trample students’ constitutionally protected freedoms. If they get off scot-free, they or others can simply do it again,” said ADF Attorney John Bursch.
GGC filed a motion to dismiss the First Amendment suit by claiming it removed the Christian student from campus because his discussion of the gospel incited “hostility” and “fighting words.” {eoa}
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Reprinted with permission from cbn.com. Copyright The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
