Colo. school grants satanic student religious accommodation from digital hall pass system

Satanists argued digital ID gave school authority over student's 'bodily autonomy'

By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, April 18, 2026

A Colorado school district has provided a tailored religious accommodation to a high school student who identifies as a satanist, exempting her from the school's digital hall pass system specifically for restroom access during class.

A spokesman for the Elizabeth School District, located in Elbert County, says the district received a parental request to exempt the student at Elizabeth High School from Minga, a widely adopted digital campus management platform used by schools across the United States to modernize and streamline student movement during the school day. 

Officials say the system was implemented at Elizabeth High School at the start of the second semester to assist in maintaining a safe, secure, and orderly learning environment for students and staff. "The system furthers this compelling interest by ensuring that students are safe and accounted for while outside the classroom," Elizabeth School District Public Information Officer Jeff Maher told The Christian Post on Friday.

The Satanic Temple’s Protect Children Project (PCP) supported the family when an initial request was denied after the student and her family argued that the bathroom access rules conflicted with her sincerely held religious beliefs as a member of The Satanic Temple (TST), citing a tenet of the satanic group which states, “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” 

In a letter to the district, TST legal counsel Matt Kezhaya argued that the school’s bathroom monitoring system burdened the student’s religious exercise by placing school authority over her bodily autonomy, the group said in a public statement on its website. 

The letter also referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which addressed parents’ rights to opt children out of instruction conflicting with their religious beliefs. 

“By its very nature, the system requires [the student] to subordinate her bodily needs to institutional surveillance and control,” Kezhaya wrote in the letter.

The district ultimately granted the accommodation last Tuesday. The student now uses physical hall passes for restroom access instead of logging departures in Minga. She has two passes: one presented to the teacher upon leaving for the restroom and returned upon returning to class, and another carried while in the hallway. The student must still use Minga for all other out-of-class purposes, according to Maher.

In his statement, Maher also cited the district’s pledged commitment to both safety and parental rights. “The District believes that Minga is an important and necessary tool at the high school level. At the same time, the District is deeply committed to honoring parental rights and to the principle that families — not schools — are the ultimate arbiters of the values by which their children are raised.”

While Maher described the accommodation as one that “both respected the student’s religion while preserving, to the greatest extent possible, the District’s ability to fulfill its safety obligations to all students and staff,” TST framed the outcome as a defense of religious liberty for its members. 

“Defending student TST members from school policies that burden their religious beliefs is central to Protect Children Project’s mission,” the group stated. “The religious accommodation in Elizabeth, Colorado, demonstrates that commitment in action. These events also serve as a reminder that when the Supreme Court recognizes a religious protection, as it did in Mahmoud v. Taylor, public institutions cannot limit those protections to majority or politically favorable religious groups.”

While the notion of satanism as a constitutionally-protected religion may surprise some, TST announced in April 2019 that the IRS recognized the organization as a “church” and eligible for federal tax exemption under existing federal law.

While TST initially lobbied against tax exemptions for churches and other religious institutions, the satanist group reversed its stance after the Trump administration signed a 2017 executive order prohibiting any “adverse action” by the U.S. Treasury against religious institutions, including tax penalties and denying them tax-exempt status.