Sidebar by Martha Quillen
Education – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
If you want to know where American law stands on prayer, it’s probably best not to ask the courts. But in the last sixty years, there have been numerous cases handed down.
In 1962, the Supreme Court heard Engel v. Vitale, and decided it was unconstitutional for government agencies, including schools, to require prayers.
In 1963, in Abington Township School District v. Schempp, the court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require recitation of the Lord’s Prayer or Bible verses.
In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled that an Alabama law that required each school to begin with a one-minute period of “silent meditation or voluntary prayer” was unconstitutional.
In Lee v. Weisman, the Supreme Court ruled that prayer during school graduation ceremonies violated the Establishment Clause.
In Jones v. Clear Creek, however, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to allow graduating seniors to vote on whether there would be prayers during graduation ceremonies.
But in 1995, in ACLU v. Black Horse Regional Board of Education, the Third Circuit Court ruled that students could not vote on whether or not they would have a student-led prayer during graduation for a variety of reasons, including:
* Even if students vote for and lead the prayer, the degree of government involvement is improper — because the school provides the building, oversees the schedules, picks the speakers, and approves the material.
* Students cannot vote to violate minority students’ rights.
In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court heard Cole v. Oroville Union High School, and ruled that extremely sectarian and proselytizing speeches at a graduation ceremony could be prohibited because there’s an impression that the religious message is supported by the school.
In Santa Fe School District v. Doe (2000) the Supreme Court ruled that official, student-led prayers before a football game violated separation of church and state.
In Supreme Court discussions and rulings, several principals have been upheld. The Court recognizes that the state is participating in dispensing prayer if the school picks the student speaker, provides the building, schedules the event, and approves of the material. The court also recognizes an element of coercion in public prayers, because dissenters may feel public and peer pressure and may also feel compelled to stand to respect others; yet standing may be regarded as participation. The Court also recognizes that not attending graduation ceremonies is not a just alternative for dissenters.
So are graduation prayers all right?
Probably. If a valedictorian or class president delivers a prayer in a graduation speech, that would probably be protected by his right to free speech. (Although at this point, it’s unclear how sectarian or fire-breathing his material can be, since schools routinely restrict free speech).
And are baccalaureate services allowed?
Maybe, if the school isn’t the sponsor, and the school doesn’t choose speakers or materials. But the event probably can’t be on school property, unless the school regularly rents or donates facilities to private groups.
The primary principal in all of this is to guarantee that the school, as an agency of our government, isn’t promoting any given religion or belief system — or coercing anyone to pray. So one of the determining factors, thus far, has been the degree of involvement on the part of the school.
According to some commentators, kids can pretty much say what they want, because they get to exercise free speech. But that’s where this may get tricky, because kids never get to say whatever they want, and school officials routinely censor student speech and activity.
At this juncture, the District Court cases have been piling up contradictions, so exactly what’s permitted and what is not permitted during graduation ceremonies is about as clear as the Arkansas River in June.
Which of course, is why the ACLU is interested in little, old Salida.
So perhaps everyone who would like to show the ACLU a thing or two, should remember that that’s exactly what the ACLU wants to do, too. It wants to show the Supreme Court a thing or two. And it probably wouldn’t be in Salida’s best interests to give the ACLU that opportunity.
But here’s hoping that somebody else does, soon. For as things stand now, it’s hard for a school to know what to do.
Supreme Court rulings are compound and nuanced and far more complicated than this piece might imply. But information, transcripts, excerpts, commentary, and critiques on these cases are readily available on the internet.
