A teacher in Idaho has filed a lawsuit after school authorities deemed her “Everyone is Welcome Here” poster unconstitutional, labeling it as a “political resistance” to former President Donald Trump’s rise and suggesting it wasn’t a universally held belief.

The West Ada School District administrators informed Sarah Inama, a social studies teacher at Lewis & Clark Middle School, that her poster and similar displays were prohibited because “not everyone agrees that ‘everyone is welcome,'” according to a federal complaint she lodged in the District of Idaho.

School officials allegedly cited the poster’s depiction of racially diverse hands as crossing into political terrain. During a February 2025 discussion, Principal Monty Hyde purportedly explained to Inama that such expressions were viewed as contentious, reflecting “the way things are now” following the Idaho Legislature’s move to ban displays showing “ideological views” on race or politics.

This legislative effort materialized as House Bill 41 (HB 41), which was enacted into law in March 2025.

In her conversation with Principal Hyde and Vice Principal Heather Fisher, Inama expressed her concerns about the policy, reportedly saying, “Sounds racist to me.” Hyde allegedly clarified that the sentiment “Everyone is Welcome Here” was deemed a personal opinion not universally accepted, thus violating the new restrictions.

“Sounds racist to me,” Inama told Hyde and her school’s vice principal, Heather Fisher, during their conversation in February 2025, according to the complaint. “Principal Hyde explained that the notion that ‘Everyone is Welcome Here’ was not something that everybody believed and was therefore a personal opinion in violation.”

The “Everyone is welcome here” poster that was banned after Sarah Inama hung it up in her classroom (Idaho Education News).

School officials deemed Inama’s poster as violating HB 41 after Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador defined “poster” as falling within the statutory definition of a “banner,” according to her complaint. He made the determination and then reiterated it in a June 2025 opinion filed with the state’s Department of Education.

Labrador concluded that the “Welcome Poster” and others like it in Inama’s classroom, including ones with rainbow colors, “‘cannot be displayed in Idaho schools’ because the posters ‘are part of an ideological/social movement which started in Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump,’” according to Inama’s complaint.

Labrador later penned an op-ed for Fox News in July 2025 in which he said, “The rainbow colors and progressive symbols accompanying these messages make their political purpose unmistakable” and they “reflect a broader ecosystem of political resistance groups launched in protest of the political rise of President Donald Trump.”

Labrador added, “These seemingly neutral terms mask a comprehensive worldview that undermines parental authority over children’s moral development.”

Inama was a sixth-grade teacher at Lewis & Clark Middle School before she resigned in May 2025. She says that “no student ever complained” about her posters being “unwelcoming,” nor did parents.

In her initial responses to administrators, Inama said she felt it was “gross to say that we need to remove hands representing colors of all students in our school,” according to her complaint. She noted that she “doesn’t agree that the skin tone is a political message” and “doesn’t want to appease bigoted people.”

The complaint adds that Inama tried fighting the ban at first, stating that it was “important to her that she not crumble to something that feels racist.” But there was ultimately nothing she could do to persuade administrators.

“Ms. Inama now brings this lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that the Speech Law [HB 41] is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad in violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, both facially and as applied, and is a violation of the Constitution of the State of Idaho,” the complaint concludes.

Labrador, the Idaho State Board of Education and Idaho State Department of Education, the West Ada School District, its superintendent Derek Bub, and principal Hyde are all named as defendants in the 43-page document. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday by Law&Crime.