Parents of students who were banned from handing out Bibles during lunch at a Pennsylvania high school reached an agreement with the school district Monday that changes language in the student handbook.

The students at Cumberland County High School in Mechanicsburg, Pa., said in January the principal was preventing them from handing out Bibles during any moment of the school day, including during lunch.

The Independence Law Center then filed suit on behalf of the parents of the students, claiming the school’s policy was a violation of constitutionally protected free speech. The students are part of a group called the Christians in Action Club, or Bible Club.

A federal judge issued an injunction against the school district in February, allowing the students to hand out Bibles.

Under the agreement reached between the parents and the Mechanicsburg Area School District, the district agreed to delete a portion of the student handbook that banned any speech that “seek[s] to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination, sect or point of view.”

The district also agreed to pay the parents’ attorney fees. The judge signed off on the agreement.

The Independence Law Center and school attorneys worked together to rewrite the school policy, according to a press release.

“When students enter a government school, they do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression, which includes offering literature to other students,” the Independence Law Center said in a statement. “However, Mechanicsburg Area School District (MASD) policies relegated student distribution of literature, quite literally, to outside the schoolhouse gate and outside of the school day”.

 

Hebrews 4:12 – For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Romans 10:17 – So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

2 Timothy 3:16 – All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Romans 1:16 – For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Acts 20:32 – And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

1 Thessalonians 2:13 – For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received [it] not [as] the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 – All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness

Jeremiah 15:16 – Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.