MIAMI — After a lawsuit over a “Satan Loves the First Amendment” sign, religious and political signs are now banned at Broward County Public Schools.

The Broward County School Board voted Tuesday to amend its policy about the types of advertisements that can be purchased and displayed at public schools. The move to ban religious and political signs passed 8 to 1 with board member Brenda Fam dissenting.

“We want to make sure that our schools are welcoming to every student no matter what they believe,” Rebecca Thompson, a school board member who voted in favor of the ban, told NBC Miami.

The policy change was the result of religious discrimination complaints from two very different groups.

In December 2023, a banner at Cooper City High School paid for by Pentecostals of Cooper City was removed following a complaint. In February 2023, the church had paid $1,200 for a one-year sponsorship at the high school through the district’s Partners in Education program, which included a banner on the school fence. Banners advertising secular businesses remained up.

“We are simply asking for equal treatment under the law and for churches not to be seen or treated as second-class citizens,” the Rev. Paul Volan, the church’s pastor, told the board during a Nov. 13 meeting. “No one should be singled out and targeted because of religious beliefs.”

Then came the Church of Satanology.

Deerfield Beach activist Chaz Stevens created the “church” as part of his advocacy to keep religion out of government. Stevens, who identifies as an atheist, sued the district in September on the basis of discrimination because local schools allowed banners from Christian churches to hang but refused to hang his banner, which reads “Satan Loves the First Amendment.” The suit was moved to federal court in October.

Last year, in the midst of conservative efforts to ban certain books from school libraries, Stevens unsuccessfully pushed for the district to remove the Bible from Broward schools. Stevens had been successful in changing signage policy in Florida schools before. In 2017, Palm Beach County schools changed its policy to avoid hanging a Church of Satanology banner. The new Broward policy is modeled after Palm Beach’s.

“They gotta let me in or they gotta remove everybody,” Stevens told WLRN.

The policy reads: “Examples of inappropriate sponsorship banners/signages include and are not limited to: churches; organizations which as its primary function furthers, promotes or seeks to establish a religious tenet or position about religion or spirituality including agnosticism, atheism or satanism; persons seeking political office; organizations which as its primary function furthers or promotes or supports political causes…”

Fam, the school board’s only conservative member, expressed her disagreement with the change during Tuesday’s meeting, saying it “puts us at risk of being sued because we are discriminating based on content.”

“There is no the type of restriction on real estate. There’s not this type of restriction on air conditioning, plumbing and the promotion of others,” she said, adding that the rule unfairly affected religious groups.”You can’t cherry pick.”

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