Barber v. Rounds

Case: 25-20125 Document: 64-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 03/09/2026

United States Court of Appeals

for the Fifth Circuit

____________ United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

No. 25-20125

FILED

March 9, 2026

____________

Lyle W. Cayce

Staci Barber, Clerk

Plaintiff—Appellee,

versus

Bryan Scott Rounds, Principal of Cardiff Junior High,

Sued in his Individual and Official Capacities,

Defendant—Appellant.

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 4:24-CV-1004

______________________________

Before Elrod, Chief Judge, Smith and Wilson, Circuit Judges.

Cory T. Wilson, Circuit Judge:

Teacher Staci Barber alleges that her school principal, Bryan Scott

Rounds, prohibited her from praying on school grounds whenever students

might see her, violating her constitutional rights as well as Texas law.

Rounds moved to dismiss, asserting qualified immunity for the claims against

him in his individual capacity. The district court denied his motion as to

every claim except Barber’s Fourteenth Amendment due process claim. The

court concluded that Barber’s complaint plausibly alleged a categorical,

visibility-based restriction on teacher prayer and that Kennedy v. Bremerton

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No. 25-20125

School District clearly established that such conduct violates the First

Amendment. See 597 U.S. 507, 525 (2022). The court further allowed

Barber’s equal protection claim against Rounds to proceed.

Rounds filed this interlocutory appeal, contending that he is entitled

to qualified immunity, in his individual capacity, regarding Barber’s First

Amendment free speech and free exercise claims as well as her Fourteenth

Amendment equal protection claim. (Barber’s Fourteenth Amendment due

process claim is not at issue on appeal.) For the reasons stated below, we

affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

Barber is a longtime teacher at Cardiff Junior High in the Katy

Independent School District (KISD). 1 She is also a Christian who—prior to

the events spawning this lawsuit—regularly engaged in prayer and Bible

study with other teachers before the school day began.

In September 2023, Cardiff’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA)

club planned to host a “See You at the Pole” (SYATP) event. SYATP is an

annual prayer event in which students across the country gather to pray

together, usually before school at their school’s flagpole. As she had done for

the prior three years, Barber emailed staff inviting them to join her in prayer

by the flagpole at 8:00 a.m. on the morning of the 2023 SYATP event.

According to Barber, she understood that the student group would not arrive

until later, after she and her colleagues finished praying.

_____________________

1

The facts recited here are taken from the complaint. “Because this is an

interlocutory appeal from the denial of a motion to dismiss, ‘[w]e accept as true all well-

pleaded facts and construe the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.’” Diaz

v. Cantu, 123 F.4th 736, 742 n.2 (5th Cir. 2024) (quoting Norsworthy v. Hous. Indep. Sch.

Dist., 70 F.4th 332, 336 (5th Cir. 2023)).

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Rounds responded with two emails. First, in a staff-wide message, he

stated that district policy prohibited employees from “praying with or in the

presence of students.” Second, in a separate email directly to Barber, he

reiterated that “employees CANNOT pray with or in the presence of

students.” And he clarified that although Barber’s proposed prayer

gathering would take place “before the school day, [she] [would still be] on

campus[,] visible to students in [her] role as an employee.” Barber

responded that her invitation was “only for staff before students arrive just

like [she and fellow teachers] ha[d] done for the past three years. . . . There

[would] be no kids when [she and her colleagues] [were] out there.” Rounds

replied that, even if no students were present at the pole, “[b]y 8:00 AM

students are generally waiting at the front entry of the building,” and their

presence on campus meant that teachers’ prayers at the pole would result in

“a violation of school policies.” When Barber and a few colleagues

proceeded to pray near the flagpole on the morning of the SYATP event

anyway, Rounds stopped them. Calling them into a conference room, he

again indicated that teachers may not pray where students “might see” or

“be influenced by” their conduct—even if such conduct occurred “when the

teachers were not on school time.”

Barber filed suit against KISD and Rounds, in his individual and

official capacities, in March 2024. Barber’s complaint alleges claims under

42 U.S.C. § 1983, for violations of her constitutional rights under the First

Amendment (free speech and free exercise) and Fourteenth Amendment

(due process and equal protection) as well as violations of the Texas

Constitution (free speech and free exercise) and the Texas Religious

Freedom Restoration Act, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann.

§ 110.001 et seq.

Barber also moved for a preliminary injunction. The district court

denied that motion, concluding that Barber had not shown irreparable harm

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but declining to address whether she had demonstrated a likelihood of

success on the merits.

Defendants then moved to dismiss, and Rounds asserted qualified

immunity regarding Barber’s federal constitutional claims against him

individually. The district court granted the motion with respect to Barber’s

Fourteenth Amendment due process claim but denied the motion as to all

other claims. The court concluded that Barber’s complaint plausibly alleged

that Rounds imposed a categorical ban on visible religious expression and that

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District clearly established the unlawfulness of

such restrictions under the First Amendment. The court also allowed

Barber’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim to proceed, finding

that the complaint’s allegations were sufficient at the pleading stage to state

a plausible claim of differential treatment by Rounds. The court thus

concluded that Rounds was not entitled to qualified immunity as to those

claims.

Rounds timely filed an interlocutory appeal regarding the denial of

qualified immunity. 2 The district court stayed all proceedings pending

resolution of the qualified immunity question.

II.

“This court reviews de novo denials of qualified immunity.” De La

Paz v. Coy, 786 F.3d 367, 371 (5th Cir. 2015). Because this appeal arises on a

motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the court’s

review is confined to the defendant’s conduct as alleged in the complaint,

which must be accepted as true and viewed in the light most favorable to the

_____________________

2

The remaining claims against Defendant Rounds in his official capacity and

against Defendant KISD are still pending in the district court and are not part of this

interlocutory appeal.

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plaintiff. Ferguson v. Bank of N.Y. Mellon Corp., 802 F.3d 777, 780 (5th Cir.

2015). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must plead “factual

content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference” that the

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged; conclusory statements do not

suffice. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).

III.

The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials

“from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate

clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable

person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).

“[A] plaintiff seeking to overcome qualified immunity must plead specific

facts that both allow the court to draw the reasonable inference that the

defendant is liable for the harm he has alleged and that defeat a qualified

immunity defense with equal specificity.” Backe v. LeBlanc, 691 F.3d 645,

648 (5th Cir. 2012).

The Supreme Court has established a two-part framework for

determining whether a defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. 3 First, we

must determine whether, “[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party

asserting the injury, . . . the facts alleged show the [government official]’s

conduct violated a constitutional right?” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201

(2001), overruled in part on other grounds by Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223,

236 (2009). Second, we must determine “whether the right was clearly

established.” Id.

“‘Clearly established’ means that the ‘contours of the right must be

sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is

_____________________

3

Courts may apply this framework in whichever order they deem appropriate. See

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 239 (2009).

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doing violates that right.’” Thompson v. Upshur County, 245 F.3d 447, 457

(5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987)). In

other words, “existing precedent must have placed the . . . constitutional

question beyond debate.” Craig v. Martin, 49 F.4th 404, 417 (5th Cir. 2022)

(alteration in original) (quoting Ashcroft v. al–Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011)).

A.

A threshold question is how broadly the court should read Barber’s

allegations. At the Rule 12(b)(6) stage, the court must accept the complaint’s

well-pled allegations as true and construe them in the light most favorable to

Barber, as plaintiff. Ferguson, 802 F.3d at 780. Barber asserts that the

complaint alleges a blanket prohibition by Rounds on teachers engaging in

any prayer that students might observe—regardless of whether the prayer

was connected to a student-led event. Rounds, on the other hand, urges a

narrower, contextual reading: that his directives were limited to ensuring

teachers did not participate in the student-initiated SYATP gathering.

Barber’s reading is consonant with the complaint’s language. Her

pleading alleges that Rounds told her she could not pray “in the presence of

students” and could not engage in prayer where she would be “visible to

students,” even away from the flagpole and even “when the teachers [are]

not on school time.” Rounds also allegedly suggested that the mere fact that

“students are generally waiting at the front entry of the building” by 8:00

a.m. rendered teacher prayer “impermissible,” and he reiterated in his later

exchanges with Barber about SYATP that teachers could not pray where

students “might see” or “be influenced” by their conduct. Accordingly, the

complaint plausibly describes a “categorica[l]” prohibition on teacher prayer

extending beyond the SYATP event to any setting in which students might

observe teachers.

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Rounds counters that such a broad interpretation overreads the

complaint. He emphasizes that Barber’s allegations arise entirely in the

context of the SYATP exchange. On this view, he intended his directives

only to ensure compliance with KISD policy and the Equal Access Act, which

forbids teachers from participating in student religious activities. See 20

U.S.C. § 4071(c)(3) (providing that “employees or agents of the school or

government” may be “present at [student] religious meetings only in a

nonparticipatory capacity” (emphasis added)). He contends that his

references to the visibility of Barber’s religious practice must be understood

within that factual frame.

At this stage, the court may not supply narrowing inferences in

Rounds’s favor. See Ferguson, 802 F.3d at 780 (“We assess a Rule 12(b)(6)

motion only on ‘the facts stated in the complaint and the documents either

attached to or incorporated in the complaint.’”). Taken as true, Barber’s

allegations describe a categorical, visibility-based prohibition on private

religious expression and exercise by teachers, not merely a context-specific

restriction tied to student group religious activities or 2023’s SYATP event.

The court therefore analyzes the question of qualified immunity under that

construction of Barber’s complaint.

B.

We first consider whether the complaint plausibly alleges facts that, if

true, describe conduct violating Barber’s First Amendment rights. Katz, 533

U.S. at 201. It does.

In Barber’s telling, Rounds prohibited her from engaging in private

religious expression or exercise where students might observe her. Barber

alleges that Rounds instructed her that she could not pray “with or in the

presence of students” and that she was prohibited from praying in any

location where she would be “visible to students,” even before the school

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day and even outside the SYATP event. She further alleges that Rounds

directed teachers not to pray where students “might see” or “be influenced

by” their conduct.

This sort of visibility-based restriction of religious exercise implicates

both the Free Speech Clause and Free Exercise Clause. See Tinker v. Des

Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969) (“It can hardly be

argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to

freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”); Pickering v. Bd.

of Ed. of Twp. High Sch. Dist. 205, 391 U.S. 563, 568 (1968) (The idea “that

teachers may constitutionally be compelled to relinquish the[ir] First

Amendment rights . . . proceeds on a premise that has been unequivocally

rejected in numerous prior decisions of this Court.”).

The parties chiefly spar over Kennedy and whether it governs this case.

It squarely does.

In Kennedy, a school district “pressured” a high-school football coach

“to abandon his practice of saying his own quiet, on-field postgame

prayer[s]” and ultimately suspended him when he failed to do so. 597 U.S.

at 516, 519. Coach Kennedy understood the school district’s directives as

effectively “banning him from bowing his head in the vicinity of students,

and as requiring him to flee the scene if students voluntarily [came] to the

same area where he was praying.” Id. at 517 (alteration in original) (internal

quotation marks omitted). The Kennedy Court held that the school district’s

actions violated the Free Speech Clause and Free Exercise Clause. Id. at 525,

543. In reaching this conclusion, the Court emphasized that the coach prayed

during a time when he was free from official “duties,” even though students

may have been present on the field, or nearby. Id. at 529. And the Court

noted that to sanction the school district’s approach would also suggest—

incorrectly—that “a school could fire a Muslim teacher for wearing a

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headscarf in the classroom or prohibit a Christian aide from praying quietly

over her lunch in the cafeteria.” Id. at 531.

These principles apply with equal force here: As in Kennedy, a

schoolteacher sought to engage in personal prayer outside instructional time,

and the school district imposed categorical restrictions on her religious

expression based solely on the possibility that students might be “in the

vicinity.” Cf. id. at 517, 543. Kennedy thus supports the conclusion that

Barber’s complaint plausibly describes conduct that, if proven, would violate

her First Amendment rights. That satisfies the first prong of the qualified

immunity inquiry as to her free speech and free exercise claims.

C.

The second question is whether the First Amendment rights at issue

were clearly established when Rounds’s challenged conduct occurred. Katz,

533 U.S. at 201. A right is clearly established only if existing precedent places

the constitutional question “beyond debate.” Martin, 49 F.4th at 417

(citation omitted).

Barber contends that Kennedy supplied the requisite clarity. Again, it

does. As Barber points out, Kennedy expressly rejected the proposition that

religious expression by a public-school employee may be restricted merely

because students might observe it. The Kennedy Court rejected the rule that

“visible religious conduct by a teacher or coach” may “be deemed—without

more and as a matter of law—impermissibly coercive on students.” 597 U.S.

at 540. As discussed above, the Court further emphasized that a teacher or

coach “engaging in a brief, quiet, personal religious observance” is “doubly

protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First

Amendment.” Id. at 543.

In other words, Kennedy clearly established that school officials may

not impose categorical, visibility-based restrictions on an employee’s private

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religious expression or exercise outside official duties. The Court’s

reasoning was not limited to the precise facts of Coach Kennedy’s post-game

prayer; rather, it more broadly rejected the premise that a school employee’s

private religious expression becomes constitutionally suspect merely because

students might observe it. Yet that premise is exactly what Barber’s

complaint alleges motivated Rounds’s directives. And because Kennedy was

decided before the conduct alleged here, the constitutional rights Barber

invokes under the First Amendment were clearly established at the time of

Rounds’s actions.

Accordingly, existing precedent placed the constitutional question

beyond debate by September 2023, when Barber and her colleagues sought

to engage in prayer at the Cardiff flagpole before the school day began. If

Rounds imposed a categorical ban on teacher prayer wherever students might

see it, as Barber alleges, he violated clearly established law. The district court

was therefore correct to deny Rounds qualified immunity with respect to

Barber’s First Amendment claims.

D.

Rounds defends his SYATP directives to Barber and the Cardiff

faculty more generally by invoking the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. § 4071.

That statute prohibits a public secondary school that maintains a “limited

open forum” from denying student religious groups access to school facilities

otherwise available to noncurricular clubs. Id. § 4071(a). The Equal Access

Act allows school employees to be present at student meetings only in a

nonparticipatory capacity. Id. § 4071(c)(3). The parties debate whether and

to what extent the Equal Access Act applies.

Rounds reads the law to justify his actions, which he characterizes as

“prohibit[ing] staff from praying with students at the [SYATP] event.” But,

as explained above, Barber’s complaint does not describe a cabined

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prohibition on teachers praying at the SYATP event—it alleges a blanket

prohibition on teacher prayer “in the presence of” or “visible to students.”

Those allegations, read favorably to Barber at this stage of the case, take this

dispute beyond the purview of the Equal Access Act. Beyond that, it is a

stretch to read the Equal Access Act—a law aimed at enhancing students’

religious liberty—to curtail the private religious expression and exercise of

teachers like Barber. We decline to apply the statute in the context of this

case to effect that outcome.

Because her complaint plausibly alleges a categorical restriction on

Barber’s private religious activity, rather than regulation of staff involvement

in student religious activities, the Equal Access Act does not alter the

qualified immunity analysis at this stage of the proceedings.

IV.

Barber also asserts a Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim,

alleging that KISD treated her religious expression less favorably than

comparable expressive activity by other staff.

To state a claim under the Equal Protection Clause, a plaintiff must

allege (1) that she was treated differently from similarly situated individuals

and (2) that the different treatment stemmed from a discriminatory intent.

Fennell v. Marion Indep. Sch. Dist., 804 F.3d 398, 412 (5th Cir. 2015). As a

threshold matter, a plaintiff “must identify defendants who were either

personally involved in the constitutional violation or whose acts are causally

connected to the constitutional violation alleged.” Woods v. Edwards, 51 F.3d

577, 583 (5th Cir. 1995) (emphasis added) (citing Lozano v. Smith, 718 F.2d

756, 768 (5th Cir. 1983)).

Barber’s complaint attributes disparate treatment to KISD generally,

not to Rounds individually. Specifically, it alleges that “KISD violated

[Barber’s] constitutional right to equal treatment under the law” by

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“singling out Staci Barber for her conduct while not similarly disciplining

other employees for their religious activities, such as the many staff members

across campuses who participate in the religious activities of other student

groups.”

Rounds argues that the equal protection claim against him in his

individual capacity fails “because there are no allegations that Rounds

himself failed to discipline other employees for engaging in conduct similar

to that of Barber.” We agree. Because the complaint fails to allege that

Rounds personally engaged in conduct that treated Barber differently from

any similarly situated employee, Barber has not stated an equal protection

claim against Rounds in his individual capacity. Generalized allegations of

district-wide disparate treatment by KISD are insufficient to establish

Rounds’s personal involvement or discriminatory intent, both of which are

required to state a claim. In other words, even “[t]aken in the light most

favorable to [Barber],” the facts alleged do not show that “[Rounds]’s

conduct violated [her] [Fourteenth Amendment] right” to equal protection.

Katz, 533 U.S. at 201.

With no constitutional violation articulated against Rounds, qualified

immunity obtains, and the equal protection claim against him individually

cannot proceed. The district court erred in concluding otherwise.

* * *

For the reasons stated, the district court properly denied Rounds

qualified immunity as to Barber’s free speech and free exercise claims under

the First Amendment. We therefore affirm the district court’s ruling as to

those claims.

However, because Barber failed to allege any equal protection

violation by Rounds individually, her Fourteenth Amendment disparate

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treatment claim against him falters. Rounds is thus entitled to qualified

immunity as to that claim, and we reverse the district court’s contrary ruling.

AFFIRMED IN PART; REVERSED IN PART.

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