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Religious Liberty Watchdog Group Says School
Officials May Not Promote 'Majority Rules' Prayer At Graduation
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed a
lawsuit against a Texas public school district that sponsors
prayer at high school graduation ceremonies.
Representing six parents and a former student, Americans United
told the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas
yesterday that the Round Rock Independent School District’s
policy of allowing students to vote on whether to include prayer
in its graduation ceremonies violates the First Amendment
principle of church-state separation.
“Graduation ceremonies should welcome all students, regardless
of their beliefs about religion,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn,
executive director of Americans United. “Religion is personal,
and decisions about it should never be the subject of a
‘majority rules’ vote.”
The school district policy allows a yearly vote by seniors on
whether to include prayer in graduation ceremonies. In 2007,
three of the district’s four high schools decided in favor of
prayer. Americans United charges in its lawsuit that school
officials organize, oversee and attempt to manipulate the votes
on whether to include prayer at the ceremonies.
For example, earlier this year, officials at the district’s four
high schools conducted the votes on whether to include prayer at
the 2007 graduation ceremonies. The senior class at Westwood
High School was the only class to vote against prayer, and it
was promptly ordered by district officials to conduct a re-vote.
Westwood seniors, however, again voted against prayer at their
graduation ceremonies.
“There could be no mistake among the students that the vote was
an official school-sponsored event: school officials crafted the
ballot and orchestrated and carried out ballot delivery,
collection, and tabulation,” Americans United argues in its Does
v. Round Rock Independent School District lawsuit. “And there
could be no mistake among the students about which way the
District expected them to vote: the one senior class that voted
to reject the invocation was promptly ordered to re-vote on the
issue.”
Although the seniors at Westwood High School withstood the
district’s pressure, prayer was included in the graduation
ceremonies at McNeil, Stony Point and Round Rock high schools.
Before filing the lawsuit, Americans United in May asked
district officials to remove prayer from the high schools’
graduation ceremonies. Round Rock Independent School District
Superintendent Jesus Chavez, however, defended the prayer
policy.
Americans United’s lawsuit asks the federal district court to
declare that the school district’s prayer policy violates the
First Amendment and to issue an injunction barring prayer at
future graduation ceremonies.
The plaintiffs in the case have chosen to remain anonymous
because they are concerned about hostile reactions to the
lawsuit.
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