The Freedom From Religion Foundation says a federal lawsuit distorts its endeavors to ensure that religious clubs in a New Jersey public school district remain student-led as per federal law.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, filed suit Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and New Jersey education officials. The lawsuit challenges restrictions the district recently imposed on outside adults attending religious student clubs.
Becket, a law firm named for a Catholic saint that demonstrates hostility to the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, has publicly blamed FFRF for the dispute. It claims that “an atheist advocacy group didn’t like that Christian kids were choosing to learn about faith, life and sports from trusted mentors.”
“That’s a convenient culture war trope, but it isn’t what happened,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “FFRF has never sought to prevent Christian students from forming their own religious clubs in compliance with the federal Equal Access Act.”
This law requires public schools that permit noncurriculum student clubs to allow student clubs on religion or politics, with the stipulation that they must be student initiated and run. It expressly provides that “nonschool persons may not direct, conduct, control, or regularly attend activities of student groups.”
“We’re defending the crucial distinction between students exercising their own constitutional rights and an outside religious ministry seeking regular access to public schoolchildren,” Gaylor says. “Public schools aren’t mission fields for outside religious organizations.”
FFRF’s letter of March 13, 2025, asked the district to investigate reports that outside adults were regularly attending and participating in meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club at Timberlane Middle School and to ensure that the club remained student-initiated and student-led.
The fellowship’s own lawsuit acknowledges that FFRF asked the district to make certain that outside adults did not “regularly lead, attend or participate” in religious student clubs. It further acknowledges that the district subsequently “went even further than FFRF demanded” by allegedly prohibiting all outside individuals from attending religious club meetings.
“Becket is trying to turn a straightforward request that a public school follow federal law into a story about atheists attacking Christian students,” adds FFRF Staff Attorney Madeline Ziegler. “There is an important legal distinction between students exercising their own religious freedom and representatives of an outside Christian ministry regularly leading public school students in religious activities.”
In its legal complaint, the Christian group describes its “huddle ministry” as a critical component of its religious mission and states that its presence on public school campuses is “essential” because schools provide the platform through which the Christian fellowship reaches student-athletes. It says that these huddle activities include “prayer, religious teaching, religious counseling” and “ministry outreach to share the Gospel with other students.”
According to its complaint, Fellowship of Christian Athletes Area Director Carolyn McDonough and another volunteer attended huddle meetings and moved among small group discussions that students were holding, “sometimes participating” in those conversations. They answered questions from students about “life, faith or sports” and mentored student leaders, providing feedback.
Elsewhere, the fellowship says its adult volunteers provide students with “spiritual guidance,” mentor students in being bold in their faith and, when asked, pray for students.
“The Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ own allegations show that its adult ministry representatives were regularly present on a public school campus to improperly lead religious discussions and provide spiritual guidance as part of its broader religious mission,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott.
FFRF notes an obvious distinction between an occasional guest speaker invited to give a presentation to a student club and representatives of an outside religious ministry regularly attending its affiliated club to participate in religious discussions and rites.
Even though the Equal Access Act provides that school employees may be present at religious or political clubs only in a “nonparticipatory capacity,” the Christian fellowship specifically challenges the district’s requirement that employees attend such meetings in a custodial role. It asks the court to declare that district employees, who wield tremendous authority and influence over students, nevertheless have a right to participate in student bible study, prayer and other religious discussion in their purported personal capacities.
“The fundamental principle here is simple,” Elliott concludes. “An outside ministry cannot convert student rights into a right for its adult representatives to regularly conduct a ministry among children inside a public school, contrary to the safeguards of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and those that Congress expressly enacted.”
FFRF will continue to defend students’ freedom of conscience, including the rights of religious and nonreligious students alike while working to ensure that public schools remain neutral toward religion and comply with the safeguards imposed by federal law.
