At the Kountze Independent School District (KISD), north of Beaumont, the cheerleaders do what many cheerleaders do: hold banners that football players run through at the beginning of each game. However, these banners include quotations from the Bible, such as, “But thanks be to God which gives us Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” according to the court documents.
An interlocutory appeal pending before the 9th Court of Appeals in Beaumont has raised the question: Does the cheerleaders’ display of those banners violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment? And the same appeal has foreshadowed another question: Who will pay the legal bills of the cheerleaders who sued the school district after it temporarily banned them from using the banners?
