Nine-year-old Lydia Booth climbed into the backseat of the car. “Mama, I’ve got bad news,” she told her mother Jennifer, who was picking her up from school.
Lydia explained that her computer lab teacher had warned her against wearing her favorite face mask to school.
Like many schools opening up during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lydia’s school in Simpson County, Mississippi, required students to wear a facial covering. And like many students during the COVID pandemic, Lydia’s classmates used their masks to express themselves.
If you were to walk around the campuses of the school district, you would see masks displaying everything from the Jackson State University logo to the New Orleans Saints logo to “Black Lives Matter.”
So what did school officials find wrong with Lydia’s?
It said “Jesus Loves Me” in bright pink letters.
Who is Lydia Booth?
Lydia grew up as your typical elementary schooler. She loves her parents, her brothers, and playing with her pets on the family farm—especially her bearded lizard, Arlo.
But her willingness to share the Gospel with her classmates isn’t so typical.
When Lydia went to school wearing her favorite “Jesus Loves Me” mask, she wanted to share the love of Jesus with those around her. “It makes me feel like I’m protected by Jesus,” she said. “And it makes me think people will think it’s a great mask, and that Jesus is a great God, and a great Savior.”
But school officials dashed this little girl’s witness when they forced her to remove her mask.
“It made me sad, and a little confused,” Lydia remembers. “Sad, because I love the words on that mask. And confused because I didn’t know why it was happening.”
This isn’t just wrong. It’s unconstitutional.
A mother’s stand for justice
After Lydia was asked to remove her mask at school, Lydia’s mother Jennifer pored over all the school’s regulations—she looked at the official handbook, letters, directives on COVID, everything. “I couldn’t find anything that specified anything to do with masks,” she said, “so I assumed they’d go by the dress code.”
But when she checked the dress code, there was nothing that would have banned Lydia’s “Jesus Loves Me” mask. In fact, there was a section about protecting students’ freedom of speech.
Assuming that this must have been a mistake, Jennifer sent Lydia back to school with the same mask.
That’s when Jennifer received a call from the principal.
The principal told Jennifer that Lydia couldn’t wear her “Jesus Loves Me” mask, saying that “you can’t have religious or political things on masks at school.”
That was news to Jennifer, who not only had researched all the school’s policies but had also asked friends and members of the school’s staff if they had ever heard of such a rule. They had not.
Together, over the phone, both the principal and Jennifer flipped through the handbook. “I know it’s in here,” the principal said. But there wasn’t anything except a rule against obscene words and gestures.
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said, “but everything that I’m reading here does not put Jesus in any of those categories. You’re going to have to show me something. You can’t just decide you’re going to censor my child.”
Jennifer kept searching for answers. She found nothing about religious messages on masks on the school district website. She did, however, find that the Mississippi Student Religious Liberties Act guaranteed students, like her daughter, the freedom to express their religious views.
She sent an email to the school district’s superintendent to share her findings and to ask the district to apologize to Lydia for making her feel bad as if she had done something wrong.
That afternoon, Lydia climbed into the car wearing a different mask. She was upset. “Mama,” she said, “they made me change masks. And it is against the rules.” “No, Baby,” Jennifer told her. “It’s not. And Mama’s going to take care of it. You didn’t do anything wrong, OK?”
Lydia’s mother makes a discovery
Jennifer wasn’t about to allow her little girl to be censored and then made to feel like she was the one in the wrong. At the advice of a fellow parent, Jennifer reached out to the assistant superintendent directly.
That’s when things took an interesting turn.
After Jennifer sent an email inquiring about Lydia’s mask situation at school, the assistant superintendent called her. He said that while the rule about no words on masks was not in the handbook or dress code, it did appear in the school’s restart plan, which he then sent to Jennifer in an email.
Jennifer knew something was off about this. An IT specialist, she decided to use her skills to investigate this document.
As it turned out, the restart plan archived on the district’s website was different than the one the assistant superintendent sent her. And the only difference was the sentence about words on masks. Even worse, the document he sent her had been modified just before she spoke to him on the phone.
“He had literally modified this document to include the information he needed to make himself right,” Jennifer said. She realized she was dealing with people willing to “run over a 9-year-old” to protect their legal position.
So the Booth family got in touch with Alliance Defending Freedom.
Public schools can’t ignore free speech rights
Shortly after ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of Lydia and her parents, the school district agreed to allow Lydia to once again wear her “Jesus Loves Me” mask. But the district did not acknowledge that it had violated Lydia’s rights.
After more than two years of litigation, the district agreed to a settlement in 2023. Under the settlement, the district agreed to pay attorneys’ fees and allow Lydia to continue wearing her mask.
Students like Lydia Booth don’t give up their First Amendment rights when they enter a school building.
School officials can’t pick and choose which messages students are allowed to express and which they aren’t. And they certainly can’t single out religious speech for worse treatment than other types of speech. On top of that, what qualifies as “offensive” or “disruptive” or “distractive” is left completely up to school officials.
If masks expressing other beliefs and views are allowed, then “Jesus Loves Me” should be allowed as well.
Public schools should be demonstrating the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students, not suppressing them.
“No public school student should be singled out for peacefully sharing her religious beliefs with fellow students,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. “Today’s students will be tomorrow’s legislators, judges, educators, and voters. That’s why it’s so important that public schools demonstrate the First Amendment values they are supposed to be teaching to students.”
Thankfully, with Lydia’s case closed, students in Simpson County schools are free to express themselves regardless of their religious viewpoint. But we’ve seen school districts across the country continue to threaten students’ free speech and religious freedom.
At ADF, we are committed to protecting First Amendment freedoms for all. To continue this work, we need your support. Will you consider supporting us? We never charge a dime to defend our clients’ constitutional rights in court, and your generous donation will help defend other students like Lydia across the country.
