As this year's high school graduations take place, it is clear that a number of schools are just realizing that scheduling of formal prayers as part of the graduation ceremony creates constitutional problems. After receiving an letter from the ACLU of Kentucky, the Shelby County, Kentucky school board decided to cancel the traditional invocation and benediction that students have given at graduation, as well as the traditional practice of formal prayer at a school banquet and awards ceremony. Today's Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Shelby county residents held a prayer vigil outside the closed school board meeting where the decision was made. The Muslim student in Shelby County who asked for ACLU assistance on the matter says that she understands that student graduation speakers might include prayers in their general remarks at commencement, but says that if they do, she hopes it is a respectful prayer for a religiously diverse audience.
Meanwhile, in Tennessee, according to today's Memphis Commercial Appeal, Dr. Patricia Kilzer, a non-tenured chemistry teacher who was the faculty advisor for a newly-formed student ACLU chapter at Munford High School, was notified that her contract was not being renewed on the same day that the ACLU faxed a letter to the school asking for cancellation of all prayers at Monday's graduation. It is not clear that there is any connection between the two events.
Prayer has apparently been a contentious issue at Munford High School. Kilzer had previously asked the principal not to use the school's broadcasting system to talk about Jesus and religion. When the ACLU sent its letter about prayer, the principal held off approving the speech of the class valedictorian that included references to Jesus until he consulted attorneys for the American Center for Law and Justice. At Munford's graduation ceremonies, in what may now be turning into a standard protest ritual, most of the 286 graduating seniors recited "The Lord's Prayer" when Principal Darry Marshall asked for a moment of silence. School administrators said they knew nothing about the planned recitation.
