11th Circuit: Challenge To Removal of Prayer Dismissed On Standing Grounds

In Holyfield-Vega v. United States, (11th Cir., Jan. 8, 2014), the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal for lack of standing plaintiff's complaint that the removal of prayer from schools and other areas violated her free exercise of religion. Plaintiff failed to describe how she had been injured by the challenged conduct.

Preliminary Injunction Denied In Challenge To Elementary School Graduation At Christian College

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."

Suit Challenges Teacher's Involvement In Weekly High School Prayer Group

The American Humanist Association yesterday announced the filing of a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a weekly Christian prayer session sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Students at Fayette, Missouri High School. The complaint (full text) in American Humanist Association v. Fayette R-III School Distrct, (WD MO, filed 11/20/2013), alleges that the devotional sessions, held before the beginning of first period in the classroom of Gwen Pope, adviser to the Christian student group, violate the Establishment Clause. Plaintiffs say that Pope participated in the prayer sessions, in violation of school policy. Her husband, a former youth minister for a local Methodist church also attended the sessions. Plaintiffs also allege that the school principal endorsed and promoted the devotional sessions.