Santa Rosa School Clerk Cleared On Civil Contempt Charge Over Banquet Prayer

Ruling on a civil contempt motion brought by the ACLU, a Florida federal judge on Friday concluded that a school clerk did not violate a preliminary injunction barring the Santa Rosa County (FL) school district and its employees from including prayers in any school event. (ACLU background on the contempt motion.) Two articles from the Pensacola News-Journal report on the court's decision which found that school clerk Michelle Winkler did not willfully violate the preliminary injunction. U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers held that Winkler was not a party to the lawsuit and did not know that this event was covered by the preliminary injunction. When Winkler's superior told her that she could not offer a prayer at a school Employee of the Year Banquet, she had her husband deliver the invocation instead of doing so herself. Also, technically the banquet was not school-sponsored, but instead was sponsored by a nonprofit organization called the Santa Rosa Education Foundation. (See prior related posting.) Still pending are more serious criminal contempt charges against the principal and the school's athletic director growing out of prayer at a Pace High School luncheon. (See prior posting.)