Stephanie Wang

stephanie.wang@indystar.com

Since Carmel Clay Schools administrators allowed a student group to display an anti-abortion poster in the high school cafeteria, do they now have to make room for a poster supporting abortion rights?

And would it potentially open the door to more advocacy posters in the school?

A newly formed student group, Voices United, wants the same exception that it says was granted to Carmel Teens for Life to air its views on abortion inside Carmel High School.

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, Voices United brought its case to a federal judge Tuesday. The student club asked for a preliminary injunction in order to hang a sign for 10 days that says in colorful block letters: "I am pro choice. I am also ... pro adoption, pro birth control, pro abstinence and pro women's rights."

Carmel school administrators, however, say student groups may only post approved signs in the cafeteria to advertise meetings — not to advocate. And lawyers for the suburban school district pointed out that Voices United's sign doesn't include the group name or meeting details.

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But because Carmel High recently allowed an anti-abortion poster, Voices United claims that the school's denial of its sign is discriminating among viewpoints.

Late last year, school administrators took down a Carmel Teens for Life sign that said, "3,000 Lives Are Ended Each Day." The sign marked up the word "abortion" to change it to say "adoption."

A conservative legal organization, Liberty Counsel, took up the student group's cause and told the school district that it would pursue legal action if school administrators did not allow the sign to be reposted.

Liberty Counsel used the same argument that Voices United is invoking now: The high school has allowed other ideological messages on signs, such as a donkey on signs for a student club for Democrats or a rainbow and use of the word "pride" on signs for a group supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.

Carmel High let Teens for Life's sign be displayed for 10 days.

Voices United argued that the school gave favorable treatment to Teens For Life by granting that exception, failing to be "viewpoint neutral" in its restrictions on speech.

Without being able to "counter the anti-abortion narrative," Voices United contended in legal documents, that the group "has been denied the opportunity to engage on equal footing in the debate over abortion practices that Teens for Life has started, with the permission of the School by posting its banner."

Accommodating Voices United could potentially open up the school policy to temporarily allow all student clubs to seek to post advocacy messages, lawyers on both sides acknowledged.

Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana acknowledged that the controversy over the Teens for Life poster “opens a can of worms, doesn’t it?”

The school said Voices United's sign request did not conform to the new, more explicit sign policy that was implemented this year. It was rejected on that basis, lawyers for the school said, with no evidence that the sign was denied based on its view of supporting abortion rights.

In contrast, Carmel schools' lawyer Alexander Pinegar said administrators did not grant an exception for Teens for Life. The anti-abortion sign was approved as smaller signs that were later put together to form a larger banner. The club name, meeting time and location were written between the hearts and words of the poster.

"It shouldn't have been taken down," he said, calling Liberty Counsel's threat of litigation "a red herring" in the reasoning behind rehanging the sign.

"If the school were out to favor a pro-life or a pro-choice message, it wouldn't have removed that banner within hours," Pinegar added.

Pratt will rule on the preliminary injunction at a later date.

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IndyStar reporters Fatima Hussein and Vic Ryckaert contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Stephanie Wang at (317) 444-6184. Follow her on Twitter: @stephaniewang.