In a victory for the religious freedom of Christians, Arkansas State University has announced they will allow players to continue to have cross shaped stickers on their helmets to pay tribute to fallen classmates.

The only condition from the school is that the players pay for the stickers themselves and that they personally place them on the helmets.

The stickers, which bare the initials of classmates Markel Owens and Barry Weyer who died in the last year, had been placed on all the helmets as a way for the team to pay tribute.  An anti-Christian attorney in Jonesboro, Louis Nisenbaum, saw one of the players on TV with a cross on his helmet and sent a threatening letter to the school.

After initially saying they would remove the crosses in response to the anti-Christianist, the school relented after student athletes contacted various religious freedom organizations to defend their religious freedom.

“In the interest of allowing our student-athletes to memorialize their fallen colleagues, Markel Owens and Barry Weyer, it is the university’s position that any player who wishes to voluntarily place an NCAA-compliant sticker on their helmet to memorialize these individuals will be able to do so,” University attorney Linda McDaniel wrote.

“This is a great victory for the players of Arkansas State University,” Liberty Institute litigation director Hiram Sasser remarked following the decision. “The university officials and the Arkansas attorney general did the right thing restoring the religious liberty and free speech rights of the players to have the original cross sticker design if they so choose and we commend them for doing so.”