School's Prayer Service To Encourage Performance On Standardized Tests Is Questioned

The Baltimore Sun this week reports on the church-state questions that have been raised by the attempts at Baltimore's Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School to raise the performance of students on statewide standardized tests.  In preparation for the Maryland School Assessments this year and last, the school has held a 30-minute prayer service to culminate special Saturday test preparation classes.  Parents asked principal Jael Yon to hold the classes and prayer service as the best way to encourage and instill confidence in the students. Asked about the prayer service, city school officials said that "while we as a district understand that prayer plays an important role for many in our school communities … it is not appropriate for public institutions of education to promote any particular religious practice."

School Principal, Athletic Director Acquitted of Contempt In Prayer Case

Late yesterday afternoon, a Florida federal district court judge acquitted a Santa Rosa County (FL) high school principal and the school's athletic director of criminal contempt charges growing out of their failure to follow the terms of a temporary injunction against faculty-led school prayer. In January, nine days after U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers issued the injunction, principal Frank Lay asked Pace High School athletic director Robert Freeman to lead a prayer at the beginning of a school luncheon at which students were present. According to yesterday's Pensacola News-Journal: "[Judge] Rodgers said the prayer at a field house dedication during the school day that was held on church property was spontaneous, and there was seemingly no intent to violate the order." AP reports that Judge Rodgers decision "was greeted with a roar of approval followed by rounds of religious hymns from the hundreds of protesters who had stood outside the Pensacola Federal Court House for the daylong trial." The contempt charges against the two officials of the rural Florida Panhandle school had become the center of national attention, in part through press releases from Liberty Counsel that was representing Lay and Freeman. (See prior posting.)

Louisiana Passes Bill Encouraging Student Use of School Space For Prayer

Last Saturday the Louisiana legislature gave final passage to HB 724 that encourages schools to allow students to use school space for prayer. The bill provides:

A. Upon the request of any public school student...  school authorities may permit students to gather for prayer in a classroom, auditorium, or other space that is not in use, at anytime before the school day begins when the school is open and students are allowed on campus, at any time after the school day ends provided that at least one student club or organization is meeting at that time, or at any noninstructional time during the school day. A school employee may be assigned to supervise the gathering if ... requested by the student ... and the school employee volunteers....

B. Any school employee may attend and participate in the gathering if it occurs before the employee's workday begins or after [it] ... ends.

C. Any parent may attend the gathering....

D. The students may invite persons from the community to attend and participate in the gathering if other school organizations ... are allowed to make similar invitations.

Wall of Separation blog sets out the concerns that American United have with the bill.

Muslim Religious Services In Canadian School Angers Hindus, Raises Legal Issues

Canada's National Post reported Tuesday on questions raised by the practice in a Toronto public school that has a predominately Muslim student body of permitting an imam to conduct a 30-minute prayer service for students in the school cafeteria on Friday afternoons. Valley Park Middle School is 80% to 90% Muslim, and some 400 students each week choose to attend the service.  While there is a mosque down the street, parents are concerned about safety and the students' failing to promptly return to school that is involved if students are merely excused to attend services there. School officials see the in-school alternative as an accommodation of students' religious practices, and not the kind of imposition of religion in the classroom that the Ontario Court of Appeals found unconstitutional in the 1988 case of Zylberberg v. Sudbury Board of Education. That case involved opening of class with a scripture reading and the Lord's Prayer.  In a National Post interview, a Canadian Civil Liberties spokesperson said:

If you looked at what happened with the Lord’s Prayer — even though you had an opt-out for students who didn’t want to say the prayer — the concern was they would be subject to a lot of peer pressure that could make life difficult. Given the size of the Muslim population in this school, it may raise similar concerns of pressure on non-Muslims to participate.

Meanwhile, Hindu groups are complaining about the potential for inflammatory preaching against Hinduism, and the fragmentation of the student body that this involves.  Canada's South Asian Focus reports that the group Canadian Hindu Advocacy says that the Muslim services in the school are unacceptable.  SAF spokesman Ron Banerjee said that his group is also opposed to the serving of halal meat in the public schools.  He added: "Our organisation is determined to ensure all Hindu students are provided non-halal meat alternatives."

School's Exclusion of Good News Club From Enrichment Program Upheld

In Child Evangelism Fellowship of Minnesota v. Minneapolis Special School District No. 1, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 113380 (D MN, Sept. 30, 2011), a Minnesota federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction to require school officials to include the Good News Club in the school district's formal After-School Youth Enrichment Program that includes school publicity, busing and snacks for participants. Instead GNC was allowed to use school space as a Community Partner, but was denied other benefits furnished to groups in the program. The court said:

CEF has cited no cases in which a court found proselytizing and prayer proper content for school-sponsored speech. Here, the District has at most engaged in content discrimination, in keeping religious prayer and proselytizing from the limited designated public forum of the After-School Program, while at the same time providing after-school facilities to CEF as a community partner....

Although it is a close question, on balance the Court finds it likely that the organizations participating in the After-School Program engage in school-sponsored public speech. Such organizations are selected by the District for additional benefits separate from those of the larger group of CPs, the forms, flyers, and other information communicated to parents bear the logos and information of District employees, and the Site Coordinators exercise some control over the content of the After-School Program. Further, an objective observer, including the parents of After-School Program attendees, could reasonably believe that a religious program held on school grounds, for which they gave permission on a sheet including other school-sponsored activities, and which involves travel on a school bus, has the imprimatur and support of the school itself.

Texas Moment of Silence Law Challenged

In Dallas, Texas, parents of an elementary school child filed suit in federal district court last Friday challenging Texas' statute providing for a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day. The Dallas Morning News reports that parents David and Shannon Croft alleged in their complaint that one of their children was told by a teacher to be quiet because the minute is a "time for prayer." Croft commented, "I do not believe there is any secular reason for a moment of silence. This is just a ruse to get prayer in school without calling it prayer in school. Is there any study showing a moment of silence helps education?" The Crofts are atheists, and Mr. Croft has complained to the schools a number of times about religious themed songs, school meetings of the Good News Club, and a poster in the school reading "In God We Trust".

The law, (Educ. Code 25.082) passed in 2003, allows children to "reflect, pray, meditate or engage in any other silent activities" for one minute after the American and Texas pledges at the beginning of each school day. In 1985, in Wallace v. Jaffree, the U.S. Supreme Court found that an Alabama moment of silence law was an unconstitutional promotion of prayer. State Rep. Dan Branch who co-sponsored the 2003 Texas law, said legislators, aware of constitutional issues, carefully worded the statute to create a neutral time. He said teachers have told him the law helps calm children down. Letting children pray in school makes them feel the school is not hostile toward their religion, he said.

Suit Challenges Prayer Mural In High School

The ACLU of Rhode Island yesterday announced that it has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a high school student challenging an 8-foot high prayer mural that has been displayed on the wall in the auditorium of Cranston (RI) High School West and of a Cranston middle school for nearly 50 years. The complaint (full text) in Ahlquist v. City of Cranston, (D RI, filed 4/4/2011) says that the prayer was adopted as the official school prayer of Cranston West around 1960.  It begins by asking "Our Heavenly Father" to grant students the desire to do their best, to help them grow, be kind, be good sports, and the like.  The suit alleges that display of the prayer violates plaintiff's 1st and 14th Amendment rights.

UPDATE: Here is plaintiff's Trial Memorandum of Law, filed 9/9/2011.

Prayer Over Football Game Loudspeaker May Be Banned

In Cambridge Christian School, Inc. v. Florida High School Athletic Association, (MD FL, June 7, 2016), a Florida federal district court, agreeing with a magistrate's recommendation (see prior posting), dismissed a suit brought by a Christian high school complaining that it was denied permission to use the stadium loudspeaker system to deliver a prayer at the Championship Game in which its football team was playing. The action was taken by the governing organization for athletics in Florida’s public schools-- a body which private schools must join if they wish to play against public schools.  The court said in part:

... [T]he entirety of the speech over the Stadium loudspeaker was government speech and ..., even if it were not, the Stadium loudspeaker is a non-public forum. Therefore, the FHSAA was permitted to deny Cambridge Christian’s request to use it to broadcast prayer during a school sporting event organized and governed by a state entity....

Here, ... there was no ban on communal prayer. Instead, the FHSAA simply declined to sponsor Cambridge Christian’s prayer, which is not a violation of the Free Exercise Clause....

The allegations of the Verified Amended Complaint ... allege only that Cambridge Christian was denied its traditional method of advancing the school’s mission during sporting events, and that the mission is a religious one. The mission itself, however, is not a religious belief, nor is broadcasting a prayer over a loudspeaker.... [E]ven if denial of access to the loudspeaker did burden a religious belief of Cambridge Christian, such a burden did not amount to a substantial one, but simply inconvenienced the belief, because Cambridge Christian was not denied alternate means of engaging in communal prayer. Accordingly, Cambridge Christian has failed to state a claim under Florida’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. 

Court Upholds School Board Invocations Under Legislative Prayer Precedents

In Doe v. Indian River School District, (D DE, Feb. 21, 2010), a Delaware federal district court upheld against an Establishment Clause attack the policy of the Indian River School Board to open its meetings with a prayer delivered by members of the school board on a rotating basis. Alternatively the board member may call for a moment of silence. Under the policy, the prayers offered may be sectarian or non-sectarian, so long as they are not used to proselytize anyone or disparage any particular belief. The court held that the Supreme Court's Marsh v. Chambers decision relating to legislative prayer applies to invocations at school board meetings, even though school students sometimes attend the meetings. Brief sectarian references in some of the prayers offered do not make Marsh inapplicable, so long as the prayer is not used to proselytize or advance religion. Yesterday's Wilmington News Journal reported on the decision, pointing out that other parts of the lawsuit challenging promotion of religious activities in the schools and at school activities were previously settled with a payment to plaintiffs and a revision of school policies. (See prior posting.)

Graduation Prayers From High School To Kindergarten Generate Complaints

Americans United announced Friday that it had filed a lawsuit challenging a Texas school district's plan to officially include prayers in its graduation ceremony, scheduled for June 4.  The complaint in Schultz v. Medina Valley Independent School District, (WD TX, filed 5/26/2011) requests emergency relief, alleging that the planned student-led  invocation and benediction violate U.S. Supreme Court precedent under the Establishment Clause. UPDATE: Reuters reported that on May 31, the court ruled that the graduation ceremony may not include an opening or closing prayer and the ceremony may not include presentations called an "invocation" or "benediction". The school does not plan to appeal the ruling. UPDATE2: Subsequently the San Antonio Express News reported that Medina Valley High School officials are appealing the court's ruling.

Meanwhile, the Freedom from Religion Foundation said in a press release yesterday that it has sent a letter (full text) to the Giles County, Tennessee, Director of Schools complaining about a two-minute sectarian prayer by a local clergyman at the kindergarten graduation at Pulaski Elementary School.  Apparently prayer is traditional at the school's kindergarten graduations. The school principal introduced the clergyman who then offered the prayer which ended with the words "in the name of Jesus Christ." [Thanks to Alliance Alert for the lead.]

Another Chapter In Battle Over LA School Prayer

The Associated Press reported today on another chapter in the long-running litigation over prayer in various school functions in the Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana schools. (See prior posting.) According to the story, federal district court Judge Ginger Berrigan found that the teacher did not violate an outstanding consent decree when she held a before-school Bible club, encouraged students to bring their Bibles to school and led students in a silent prayer following the Pledge of Allegiance. The existing order only prohibits prayer at "school sponsored events" such as athletic events, prayers over the public announcement system and during school assemblies. The ACLU says it is now considering a separate suit over the activities of fourth-grade teacher Pamela Sullivan.

Suit Challenges Graduation Prayer Policy of Texas High Schools

On Monday, six parents and a former student sued the Round Rock (TX) Independent School District, alleging that its policy on prayer at high school graduation ceremonies is unconstitutional. The Texas school district allows a yearly vote by seniors on whether there should be prayer at their graduations. The suit, filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, argues that the vote is an official school-sponsored event in which the district makes clear that they want students to vote in favor of prayer. In one case, the school district ordered a re-vote when students voted against prayer. The complaint in Does v. Round Rock Independent School District was filed in federal district court for the Western District of Texas. (Press release).

Group Promotes Options For Prayer At Graduation Ceremonies

Liberty Counsel yesterday announced its Ninth Annual "Friend or Foe" Graduation Prayer Campaign designed to "educate and, if necessary, litigate to ensure that prayer and religious viewpoints are not suppressed during graduation ceremonies." A legal memo that the group has produced says:

Prayer can still be conducted at public school graduations if school officials use secular criteria to invite the speaker, and once there, the speaker voluntarily prays. A valedictorian, salutatorian, or class officer can also voluntarily pray as part of the ceremony. The student body can elect a class chaplain or elect a class representative for the specific purpose of prayer. Part of the school program can be given over to the students and therefore be student-led and student-initiated. A parent and/or student committee can create and conduct part of the ceremony and, therefore, avoid state involvement. The ceremony can be conducted off the school premises by private individuals, and therefore no state involvement would occur. The school may also adopt a free speech policy which allows the senior class an opportunity to devote a few minutes of the ceremony to uncensored student speech that can be secular or sacred. Finally, private individuals can sponsor public school graduations on or off the public campus.

ACLU Sues Louisiana School Board Challenging ADF's Model Prayer Policy

The ACLU of Louisiana announced yesterday that for the seventh time it has filed a lawsuit against Tangipahoa Parish School Board and its members, this time challenging the Board's policy on opening school board meetings with prayer. The federal court complaint (full text) challenges under the Establishment Clause the Board's policy which invites clergy in local congregations, on a first-come first-served basis, to lead an opening prayer before the formal opening of the Board meeting. An ACLU challenge to the Board's earlier prayer policy was dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on standing grounds because there was no evidence in the record that plaintiffs ever attended a school board meeting where a prayer was recited. (See prior posting.) Plaintiff in the new case is a taxpayer, voter, father of two children enrolled in the local schools, and attends board meetings.

The AP yesterday reporting on the lawsuit said that the complaint "describes three board meetings at which ministers from different Christian denominations made Christian prayers. It also says [plaintiff's] wife asked ... if she could give an invocation, but was told that was reserved for ministers of congregations or police or fire department chaplains — and that being "nondenominational" would also bar her...."

This suit may have more than local significance as the policy being challenged is a Model Prayer Policy that the Alliance Defense Fund has recommended to school boards and city councils around the country. (ADF release.)

Byrd Introduces School Prayer Amendment

West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd yesterday introduced in Congress a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would allow voluntary prayer in public schools. The proposed amendment reads:

Nothing in this Constitution, including any amendment to this Constitution, shall be construed to prohibit voluntary prayer or require prayer in public school, or to prohibit voluntary prayer or require prayer at a public school extracurricular activity.

The Charleston Daily Mail reports that this is the eighth time in 43 years that Byrd has introduced the proposal. The Daily Mail also says that it has learned from Byrd's office that Byrd has talked about his amendment and the original intent of the drafters of the First Amendment with Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. The full text of Byrd's expansive speech introducing the amendment is available from his website.

9th Circuit: School Board Invocations Violate Establishment Clause

In Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education, (9th Cir., July 25, 2018), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the district court that a California school board's prayer policy at board meetings violates the Establishment Clause. The court said in part:

The invocations to start the open portions of Board meetings are not within the legislative prayer tradition that allows certain types of prayer to open legislative sessions. This is not the sort of solemnizing and unifying prayer, directed at lawmakers themselves and conducted before an audience of mature adults free from coercive pressures to participate, that the legislative-prayer tradition contemplates.... Instead, these prayers typically take place before groups of schoolchildren whose attendance is not truly voluntary and whose relationship to school district officials, including the Board, is not one of full parity.....

Instead of the legislative-prayer analysis, we apply the three-pronged Establishment Clause test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman.... The Chino Valley Board’s prayer policy and practice fails the Lemon test and is therefore unconstitutional.

Los Angeles Times reports on the decision.

British Religious Groups Urge Enforcement Of School Prayer Requirements

In Great Britain, a group of religious leaders has written the new Secretary of State for Education, Alan Johnson, urging him to make sure that secondary schools carry out their obligation to provide daily collective worship for students. Britain's School Standards and Framework Act of 1988, Sec. 70 and Schedule 20, requires daily organized school prayer that is "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". Parents can request to have their children excused from prayer, and religiously-affiliated schools have prayer in their faiths' traditions. The religious leaders said, according to today's Guardian Unlimited, that many secondary schools are ignoring the daily worship requirement, even though it makes a "major contribution ... to the spiritual and moral development of pupils". They said that more teacher training is required and that the government needs to issue a clear statement to schools setting out their legal obligations. However the British Humanist Association has urged the education secretary to press for a change in the law that would allow schools to have more inclusive student assemblies.

Missouri House Passes Proposed Constitutional Amendment On School Prayer

Today the Missouri House of Representatives passed and sent on to the Senate HJR 39, that would ask the voters to amend the Missouri Constitution's bill of rights to protect school prayer. If passed by the Senate, the proposed amendment will then go to a vote of the people. The new Art. I, Sec. 5 would read [new language in italics]:

That all men and women have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no person shall, on account of his or her religious persuasion or belief, be rendered ineligible to any public office or trust or profit in this state, be disqualified from testifying or serving as a juror, or be molested in his or her person or estate; that to secure a citizen's right to acknowledge Almighty God according to the dictates of personal convictions, neither the state nor any of its political subdivisions shall establish any official religion, but a citizen's right to pray or to express his or her religious beliefs shall not be infringed; that the state shall not compose prayers nor coerce any person to participate in any prayer or other religious activity, but shall ensure public school students their right to free exercise of religious expression without interference, as long as such prayer or other expression is private and voluntary, whether individually or corporately, and in a manner that is not disruptive nor in violation of other policies, rules, or standards, and as long as such prayers or expressions abide within the same parameters placed upon any other free speech under similar circumstances; and, to emphasize the right to free exercise of religious expression, that all free public schools receiving state appropriations shall display, in a conspicuous and legible manner, the text of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States; but this section shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness, nor to justify practices inconsistent with the good order, peace or safety of the state, or with the rights of others.

The vote in the House was 134 yes, 17 no, and 3 present. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported yesterday that proponents of the constitutional amendment say it will prevent litigation and will make clear to students what their rights are. Opponents say it is unnecessary and could create confusion. Democrats failed in an attempt to add a provision that would set a popular vote on the proposed amendment in August. They believe that placing the amendment on the November ballot might draw more Republicans to the polls than otherwise.

Washington Football Coach Is Latest Focus In Battle Over Prayer At School Activities

An AP report yesterday focused on Bremerton, Washington, High School assistant football coach Joe Kennedy who is quickly becoming the latest focus in the ongoing battle over prayer at public school events.  Kennedy has been praying mid-field at the end of the game since 2008, but his actions have not become a cause for controversy until last month. Needless to say, Kennedy and school officials have starkly differing narratives.

Kennedy's lawyers, the Liberty Institute, say that Kennedy is merely engaging in a personal faith practice, in which he has often been voluntarily joined by a majority of his team, other coaches and the opposing team. The school district, however, says that coaches still have duties after the game is over, and permitting Kennedy to engage in a public religious display in the midst of his duties would amount to district endorsement of religion. He has now been placed on paid administrative leave. The school district says it has offered to accommodate Kennedy by providing him a private location for him to use to pray in a way that does not interfere with his duties.  Kennedy's lawyer responds: "When it comes to religious freedom in the country, that's never been the law, that you can have religious expression, but you have to hide it somewhere." (Bremerton Patriot.)  Apparently Kennedy plans to sue claiming a denial of religious accommodation.

Meanwhile, others are getting into the act.  In October, the Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the Bremerton superintendent supporting the school district's position. (Press release.) As reported by the Christian Post, 47 members of Congress this week signed a letter (full text) supporting Kennedy. And (as reported by RT) this week the Seattle Chapter of the Satanic Temple, saying that the school has essentially turned the post-game field into a public forum for religion, wrote to school officials (full text of letter) saying: "In light of football coach Joe Kennedy’s public prayer on the Bremerton High football field at the October 18 game, The Satanic Temple of Seattle requests permission to also perform a public Satanic invocation on the football field after the next football game, at the behest of a Bremerton High student."

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.)