School prayer issue remains unsettled  
From The Plain Dealer  (Cleveland, OHio)

05/18/03  Scott Stephens and Janet Okoben  Plain Dealer Reporters

Educators and constitutional experts are still grappling over whether God should have a seat on the stage of public school graduation ceremonies this spring. 

For some, the issue appeared settled in 1992 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down clergy-led prayers at graduations. The court ruled that while students are free to pray in clubs before school or say grace over meals, the school cannot sponsor prayer. 
     
But since that ruling, federal courts across the country have issued different, sometimes contradictory, orders about commencement prayers, meaning that schools must follow different legal standards depending on what federal circuit they are in. 

In the Northeast, for instance, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has prohibited student-initiated graduation prayers, saying that graduations are school events held on school property and paid for with taxpayer dollars. 

But in the Southwest, the 5th Circuit ruled that a Texas student had the right to lead a prayer at graduation, and the school district had the right to edit her prayer in advance to make sure it was nonsectarian and did not "proselytize." The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Florida, Georgia and Alabama, has upheld a Florida district's policy of letting the senior class choose a student to deliver a "message." 

"It's not good for the state to be in the business of supervising and monitoring prayer," said Baylor University's Derek Davis, an expert on church-state issues. "But the law is a little unsettled. It will take another Supreme Court decision to clear things up." 

Because the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati has not ruled specifically on graduation prayer, Ohio schools are governed by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling barring school-sponsored prayers, legal experts say. 

Complicating the issue this year is a new set of federal guidelines issued in February as part of the No Child Left Behind Act. The guidelines remind schools to either accommodate "constitutionally protected prayer" or risk losing public money. 

"The practical impact of the prayer guidelines is as an additional tool for those who want to see more prayer in schools," said K. Hollyn Hollman, a lawyer for the Washington, D.C.-based Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. 

Raymond Vasvari of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio does not expect the new federal guidelines to promote prayer in state schools, because most districts will be reluctant to run afoul of the Supreme Court's 1992 ruling. 

"School officials are not free to wink and nod at it, and administrative guidelines like those in No Child Left Behind do not make the law," Vasvari said. "They don't change what the courts have to say about this." 

He added that the ACLU has not received complaints about graduation ceremony prayers this year, "but that doesn't mean it won't happen." 

Generally, courts have prohibited prayer at graduations to protect the rights of all students. Students and parents who attend graduation are considered a captive audience, not a voluntary assembly like a group of students praying around the flagpole. 

"Students who want to participate in a secular event without it being turned into a religious service should have the right to do so," said Judith Schaeffer, deputy legal director for People for the American Way. 

Cleveland has long been a flashpoint for the school-prayer issue. While attending a 1992 school board meeting, Sarah Coles, a ninth-grader and a Baptist, believed the openly sectarian prayer that began the meeting made non-Christians in the audience uncomfortable. She sued, and in 1991, the 6th Circuit judges ruled in her favor. 

But school officials in big-city districts such as Cleveland routinely call on pastors in local black churches to help out with an election campaign or spread the word about school initiatives, and there are times when a prayer slips into a ceremony at a school, as at last year's groundbreaking for the new East High gym. 

Cleveland schools Chief of Staff Lisa Marie Ruda said the district knows the boundaries for prayer. But the relationship between the district and local churches is an important one that the district has no plans to abandon, she said. 

"Just like we've got to go to the business community, so too you've got to go to the faith-based community," Ruda said. 

Prayer played a prominent role in a rally last October in support of the ballot issue to keep mayoral control of the school board. The Rev. Otis Moss of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church asked a crowd gathered in front of the school administration to join hands in prayer. Cleveland Board of Education President Hilton Smith joined in, too. 

"I don't mean to bring church here, but God sent us Barbara Byrd-Bennett," Smith said before delving into several minutes of prayer before a sea of bowed heads. 

The ACLU's Vasvari said that prayer at a political rally involving the schools does not violate church-state separations. But Smith, an associate pastor at Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church, admits he's not immune from slipping in an occasional reference to God during school board meetings and other school functions. 

Every once in a while during a board meeting, particularly when someone in the audience has vexed him, Smith can't help declaring: "God Bless the Cleveland Municipal School District." Smith said he respects and follows the law prohibiting spoken prayer in public schools - even if he doesn't agree with it. 

"I'm a firm believer that we need prayer in school," he said. "When we stopped praying, that's when the guns and drugs came to the schools." 

To reach these Plain Dealer reporters: sstephens@..., 216-999-4827  jokoben@..., 216-999-4535  © 2003 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.  



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