Former West Ada school teacher files federal lawsuit over state, district response to ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ poster
Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on February 4, 2026
by Sean Dolan, IdahoEdNews.org.
BOISE, Idaho — The middle school teacher who was forced to remove a classroom sign that read, “Everyone is Welcome Here,” filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday seeking a declaration that an Idaho flag and banner law is unconstitutional.
Administrators for West Ada School District last year forced teacher Sarah Inama to remove the banner from her classroom. She quit her job in West Ada and now works for Boise School District.
Inama is asking the United States District Court of Idaho to declare that a state law passed last year that prohibits the display of certain flags and banners violates the U.S. Constitution and the Idaho Constitution.
She is seeking damages, attorney fees, a jury trial and an injunction to stop state and district officials from enforcing the state law.
Inama’s lawsuit names multiple defendants:
- The Idaho State Board of Education
- The Idaho Department of Education
- Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador
- The West Ada School District
- West Ada Superintendent Derek Bub
- Monty Hyde, principal of West Ada’s Lewis and Clark Middle School
In January 2025, West Ada administrators asked Inama, a sixth-grade teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, to take down two signs promoting inclusivity. In addition to the “Everyone is Welcome Here” banner — which included hands of several skin colors with hearts in their palms — she displayed on her wall a sign that said everyone in the room is welcome, important, accepted, respected, encouraged, valued and equal. Each word shows a different color of the rainbow.
A district official told Inama in an email that her signs were out of alignment with a district policy that prohibits the display and teaching of “controversial issues” and the “advancement of individual beliefs.”
Click here for a timeline and stories related to the controversy surrounding Inama's poster.
Around the same time, the Idaho Legislature was in the process of passing House Bill 41. Signed into law by Gov. Brad Little on March 19, the law prohibits K-12 public schools from displaying flags or banners showing opinions, emotions, beliefs or thoughts about politics, economics, society, faith or religion.
Labrador in June issued an opinion that HB 41 found schools cannot display the “Everyone is Welcome Here” banner.
Labrador wrote in a July 14 op-ed for Fox News that the message behind Inama’s classroom posters appear to be “simple, positive words that seem apolitical,” but the rainbow colors are actually “progressive symbols” aligned with diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.
“These classroom displays reflect a broader ecosystem of political resistance groups launched in protest of the political rise of President Donald Trump,” Labrador wrote.
The lawsuit argues that Labrador deprived Inama of her constitutional right to freedom of speech when he stated that the “Everyone is Welcome Here” poster violated HB 41.
“Ms. Inama’s First Amendment rights are and were infringed by the Speech Regulations and will continue to be threatened absent relief from this Court,” Inama’s lawyers wrote in the 43-page complaint.
The lawsuit includes seven clauses of action, one of which targets the West Ada School District, Bub and Hyde.
Teachers do not shed their First Amendment rights when they enter the schoolhouse, the lawsuit argues. District officials told Inama that the hands with different skin colors is an improper political message, according to the lawsuit, but the integration of ethnicities in public schools has been settled law for decades.
“Ms. Inama is legally obligated to welcome students of all races and ethnicities into her classroom,” the lawsuit states.
The defendants have 21 days to respond to the complaint.
