Op-Ed Explores School Board's Rule On Sacred Music In Choir Concerts

An always-difficult subject under the Establishment Clause is the extent to which school choir concerts may contain sacred music. An interesting op-ed in yesterday's Livingston (MI) Daily Press & Argus explores the Howell (MI) Public Schools' attempt to deal with the issue. Last year, the Howell Public Schools Board faced extensive criticism when it imposed on a visiting German choir its policy that concerts should contain no more than 30% sacred music. (See prior posting.) So this year the Board raised the allowable amount of religious music to 50%. The paper asks how this is to be computed:

Is it the number of songs, sacred versus secular? Or time — would one six-minute secular song be worth two three-minute sacred songs? Or, since the musical notes themselves are neither sacred nor secular, is it just the lyrics? Do we have to count lines within each song?

Equally unclear is exactly to whom the policy would apply. School board members seem to think the policy would not apply to outside groups that rent a room in a Howell school building for an event. Administrators seem to think it would....

[The Constitution] says public schools can't promote one religion over another.... [W]hy can't the Howell school board come up with a policy that says that, and goes no further so that it avoids creating needless controversies where there really is no controversy?