A Colorado teenager is speaking out after winning a religious liberty battle against her school district.
Sophia Shumaker, a senior at Rampart High School in Colorado Springs told CBN News she wasn’t allowed to have Christian imagery painted on her school parking spot.
“My original design was a shepherd and 99 sheep, and the shepherd is leaving the 99 sheep to go find the lost one, and with a Bible verse of 1 Corinthians 13:4,” Shumaker said. “And when I presented that to a representative of student council, she said it wouldn’t get accepted just because it has that religious imagery.”
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She then wanted to do an abbreviated Bible verse version of the design, but was told again it likely wouldn’t be permissible.
“So I ended up just completely redoing my parking spot,” Shumaker said, noting she put a covert religious image in the new design. “I had a group of fish and then one fish was, you know, swimming backwards and I don’t think they caught on to that one.”
Keisha Russell, an attorney with First Liberty Institute, told CBN News she routinely deals with these issues and defended Shumaker’s “private student expression.”
“I actually really love helping students,” Russell said, noting First Liberty wrote a demand letter to the school district to try and remedy the situation. “And I love it when they want to stand up for themselves.”
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Shumaker said she was inspired to take action and reach First Liberty after seeing another student score a victory in a similar circumstance.
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Reprinted with permission from faithwire.com. Copyright © 2025 The Christian Broadcasting Network Inc. All rights reserved.
