Johnson County First Amendment Foundation’s 10th Anniversary Program a Success
By Bill Hayes - Diversity News, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, December 2009, p. 15
Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP established the Johnson County First Amendment Foundation on December 22, 1999, after the successful resolution of a banned-book case in the Olathe, Kansas School District. The banned book was Nancy Garden’s Annie on My Mind, the story of a romantic relationship between two teenage girls. The court ordered the losing party—the Olathe School District—to return Annie to the library’s shelves and to pay SHB $170,000 for the attorney’s fees it had incurred. The firm then used those fees, plus $30,000, to establish the foundation. The foundation’s charter is to promote a better understanding among Kansas students of the First Amendment and other constitutional rights.