School District Cancels Graduation Prayer
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Prayer At Graduation
An official prayer is removed from a district's graduation, but could students lead the prayer, instead?
NBC 4
GETTING ANSWERS: An official prayer is removed from a district’s graduation, but could students lead the prayer instead?
Published: May 13, 2009
Updated: May 13, 2009
ROSS COUNTY, Ohio—A local school district has decided it will take a prayer out of its graduation ceremony.
It has been a long-standing tradition for Southeastern High School to invite clergy to graduation and offer a prayer.
Faced with a complaint from a high-school senior and potential legal action, Southeastern Local School District Superintendent Brian Justice told NBC 4 Wednesday afternoon the district will not include a school-sponsored prayer in next week’s graduation ceremony.
“I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want prayer,” Justice said.
Southeastern High School student Jacob Davis enlisted the help of an attorney from the group Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in asking the prayer be removed.
Justice said that after consulting with a school-district attorney, he had no choice but to follow the law and remove the traditional prayer from the ceremony.
In its place, Justice said one or two students will be selected to give opening and closing remarks, leaving open the possibility that a student could lead a prayer without direction from the school or district.
When I asked Justice why it took the district 17 years to adhere to the Supreme Court’s ruling, he said: “It’s never been brought to our attention.”
“The fact that we had prayer for 16 years and it’s against the law, not knowingly doing it, but at the same time I don’t think it hurt anybody. I think prayer is good,” Justice said.
“It’s pushing Christianity on us, and it’s just uncomfortable for everybody. I don’t think it should be there,” Jacob said Tuesday.
According to Justice, Jacob became the first to publicly question the prayer last month when he called for the prayer to be replaced with a moment of silence.
“It kind of angers me that in 1992, almost 20 years ago, it was said that any prayer at graduation, no matter the content, was unconstitutional. And it still goes on,” Jacob said Tuesday.
“To me, we weren’t violating anything because we weren’t telling you who to pray to or who not to pray to. I think it’s sad that we live in a country based on God and that’s how we established this country, and now we can’t do that,” Justice said.
Justice, a practicing Christian, who also identifies himself as a preacher, said Jacob never came to him or to Southeastern’s principal with his concerns.
But once he learned of those concerns, he had to act.
In its 1992 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said public schools cannot invite religious authority figures to deliver a prayer at graduation ceremonies. The ruling did not prohibit student-led prayer
The American Civil Liberties Union said all prayer in graduation ceremonies is unconstitutional, but Justice said his understanding of the Supreme Court’s ruling is the school cannot direct students into prayer.
As for student speakers who take it upon themselves to pray, “If a student breaks out into prayer, it’s not because it’s directed from this school,” Justice said.
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Reader Reactions
First, good on Jacob for standing up for his beliefs. Everyone has the right to do so.
Take the below how you will.
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An insight from at a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the U.S. goverenment to a foreign nation. Officially called the “Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary,“ most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.“
Joel Barlow wrote the original English version of the treaty, including Amendment 11. Barlow forwarded the treaty to U.S. legislators for approval in 1797. Timothy Pickering, the secretary of state, endorsed it and John Adams concurred (now during his presidency), sending the document on to the Senate. The Senate approved the treaty on June 7, 1797, and officially ratified by the Senate with John Adams signature on 10 June, 1797. All during this multi-review process, the wording of Article 11 never raised the slightest concern. The treaty even became public through its publication in The Philadelphia Gazette on 17 June 1797.
This situation has created a perfect opportunity for a most awesome, beautiful graduation ceremony! Since the program agenda has been forced to eliminate an outside source coming to offer ONE prayer because one student stated he would be uncomfortable with state supported prayer, he has opened the door for every student participating in graduation to have the opportunity to personally express verbally a prayer of their choosing. Now Jacob Davis has the potential of hearing a plethora of prayers, hopefully representing many religions or spiritual paths. GO SOUTHEASTERN GO!!!!
This is a public school, as in you CAN’T do whatever it is you want. No, the Constitution does not list this, nor does it list 99% of “Constitutionality” arguments, that is what…wait for it…the Supreme Court is for. They, as the designated ruling body of Constitutional law, decide what violates or does not violate, Constitutional law aka “The Constitution”. In 1992, the SC ruled prayer at a public (publicly funded school) graduation ceremony by clergy or non-clergy, violates the principals of the Constitution. I am all for prayer in general and if the valedictorian says one in their speech, all for it. THAT is free speech. The school including a prayer in their official program is not free speech, it is a violation of the SC ruling (1992), what about this is so hard to understand? GO TO PRIVATE SCHOOL IF YOU WANT OFFICIAL PRAYERS! Otherwise, respect the fact that tax dollar funding is subject to law and in turn, Constitutionality.
Jacob Davis does 18-year-old males a disservice by giving evidence that it is in fact true that 18-year-olds think they know everything. Jacob doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s done, nor the road that his feet are set upon now that he has distanced himself from Almighty God. When things go badly wrong in his life (I sincerely hope they don’t, but they will), he will never recognize the signs. I can only pray that at graduation, one or more students will have the courage and fortitude to publicly acknowledge and thank Almighty God for His influence in their lives.
I’m shocked at all of the bickering going back & forth on this! The prayer could have been said a billion times by now & everyone would have lived through it & moved on unscathed!
This will be an on-going argument for the rest of all of our lives because it is an opinion based argument. Truth is if I get to pray at school you will not die & if I don’t I will not die!
We have become a society where everything we do or say is going to offend someone so you can’t win!! It’s all about who can yell louder!
WHEN THEY ALL “GET IT”, IT WILL BE TOO LATE. THESE ARE THE SAME PEOPLE THAT WILL SAY “WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS COUNTRY.“ DUH!!! NO RESPECT, NO MOTIVATION, NO MORALS, NO RELIGION.
That is what I was pointing out in a previous comment. He said prayer was uncomfortable for everyone, but he never mentioned any other students. He was only talking about himself. If there are others, why were they not standing up with him? Just because it is something that he believes, doesn’t mean that everyone else does too. I may be ignorant because I am only familiar with one religion, but I’m sure that all religions have a prayer of some kind.
If prayer was “uncomfortable” for “everybody” then why was this CHILD the only one protesting it? I’ll bet he’ll get a standing ovation when he goes across the stage to get his diploma…
Our nation was founded on religion. If we as christians do not get back to serving the one true GOD and get back to the basics.If people in the United States do not start standing up for what is right as christians then we will be doomed. Nowadays what used to be right is wrong and what used to be wrong is right. I am so sad to see my kids and grandkids grow up in a world the way it is now. As christians we are condemned if we speak out against anything we feel is wrong. We have no free speach. Christians are setting back and just letting things float by waiting on someone else to maybe get things straightenend out.GOD help us all. I feel sorry for this young man Jacob Davis. I will be praying for you.
Yes it does god loves a sinner but hate sin so much that he gave us a saviour so we could go to heaven and he does,nt want to force him self on us and i admit that we do that and me included.
JESUS SAID I AM THE WAY THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER EXCEPT THROUGH ME. I AM NOT DOING THIS WITH ANGER I AM JUST QUOTING THE WORD OF GOD. MY DAY AND TIME OF PEACE AND LOVE AND ETERNAL LIGHT WILL COME SOMEDAY IN HEAVEN AND I CAN,T WAIT YOU BE AT PEACE TOO
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