With graduation season upon us, a story today from Agape Press reminds us of the continuing ambiguities in the rules regarding what may be said at public school graduation ceremonies. Thirteen years ago in Lee v. Weisman, the Supreme Court struck down on Establishment Clause grounds a prayer by an invited clergyman at a graduation ceremony. The Court's holding was based both on the school's involvement in inviting the clergyman, and on the peer pressure placed on students attending graduation to show their support for the content of the prayer by standing or remaining respectfully silent.
Now, in a Wisconsin high school, the class valedictorian included the following in her talk: "There is Someone Who can make the journey seem a lot easier. His name is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate source of success, love, laughter, dreams and the future. He is the Creator of the universe who longs to have a relationship with you." School officials required students to submit their speeches in advance. When this student did, the school told her to delete references to religion, God or Jesus. However, acting on the student's behalf, Liberty Counsel convinced school authorities that their action amounted to unconstitutional censorship, and that neutrality required the school to permit the student to share her gratitude to God with other students and family members.
I am not sure that is correct. The student prayer here was far more sectarian than the rather neutral one at issue in Lee v. Weisman. Students in the audience feel equal peer pressure to sit silently and accept the prayer. School officials have control over the content of student speeches-- they require them to be submitted in advance. Just as the clergyman was invited to speak in Lee, the valedictorian was invited to speak here by the school. Nothing requires a school to have a speech by the valedictorian at graduation, just as nothing requires it to have an invocation. Perhaps schools are merely responding to whichever lawyers lay siege to them first.
