A South Carolina federal district court on Tuesday denied a preliminary injunction in
American Humanist Association v. Greenville County School District. The lawsuit challenges on Establishment Clause grounds the practice of holding graduation for a Taylors, South Carolina elementary school in the chapel of North Greenville University, a Christian college. (See
prior posting.) The ruling came in response to a motion to bar the Greenville school district, pending final resolution of the case, from permitting prayers as part of any school-sponsored event, including graduation ceremonies, and from holding school-sponsored events in churches, chapels and other places of worship.
The State reported on the judge's ruling from the bench:
Senior U.S. District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr., at a court hearing, said the American Humanist Association’s allegations against the Greenville County school district lacked proof and were "making a mountain out of a mole hill."
The judge also told an attorney for the association that "with all due respect and apologies" he had never heard of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, founded in 1941.
Anderson called the association’s charges against the school district bold "and disturbing."
