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CV NEWS FEED // The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum agreed to a $50,000 settlement with Catholic school students and their parents just over one year after a security guard ordered the group to take off their pro-life hats while they were visiting the institution.
NBC News reported Monday that the settlement “includes attorneys’ fees” and “calls for the museum’s director to give the plaintiffs a tour of the facility … and for the director to apologize to them for the guards’ actions on Jan. 20, 2023.”
“And the Smithsonian agreed to notify security personnel at all of its museums and the National Zoo about its policy allowing hats and other articles of clothing bearing messages, ‘including religious and political speech,’” NBC News continued:
The settlement comes four months after the National Archives Museum in Washington agreed to pay $10,000 to a smaller group of plaintiffs and to settle a similar lawsuit.
The plaintiffs in that case were told by National Archives guards to either cover clothing bearing “pro-life” messages or leave that federally operated institution, also on Jan. 20, 2023.
The plaintiffs in both cases visited the respective Washington, D.C., museums on the same day they took part in the 50th annual March for Life.
The dozen students asked to remove their hats attended Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenville, SC. They were on a school trip to the nation’s capital at the time.
The blue winter hats, which the group wore to identify each other during the march, simply bore the words “Rosary Pro-Life.”
The National Catholic Register (NCR) reported in February 2023:
Although other visitors wore various kinds of hats, according to attorney Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice, the students were treated differently. Sekulow said the students “were accosted several times and told they would be forced to leave unless they removed their pro-life hats.”
Sekulow said at the time: “The museum staff mocked the students, called them expletives, and made comments that the museum was a ‘neutral zone’ where they could not express such statements.”
“The employee who ultimately forced the students to leave the museum was rubbing his hands together in glee as they exited the building,” the attorney added.
One of the student plaintiffs, Patrick Murphy, recounted the experience in the Air and Space Museum during a FOX News interview, also in February 2023.
“They (said), ‘All people wearing a pro-life hat, take it off’ … and immediately we’re confused,” he told host Sean Hannity.
“I said, ‘This is a violation of our First Amendment right. This is a government-funded building. How are we paying for this with our taxes and I’m not allowed to wear this hat?’” Murphy added.
The student told Hannity that the guard claimed the group’s First Amendment rights were not applicable on the property.
“We had almost no words,” Murphy said.
