March 22, 2000
Appeals court upholds student 'message'
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) --A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a Florida school district's policy of permitting student-led prayers at high school graduations.
___The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled by a 10-2 margin that a policy allowing "student messages" that may or may not include a prayer does not violate the separation of church and state.
___Previously, a three-judge panel of the appellate court ruled the prayer messages illegal. The full court intervened on behalf of the Duval County School Board in Jacksonville, Fla., by granting a hearing and setting aside the panel's decision pending a final ruling, which the court issued March 15.
___The policy, enacted by a former superintendent after the school district's long tradition of graduation prayers was declared unconstitutional in 1992, lets each senior class decide whether or not to include a two-minute opening or closing message and select the student to give it. School officials may not regulate the content of the student messages, which can be on any topic the student chooses.
___A group of parents and students charged the policy was a sham effort to circumvent the U.S. Supreme Court's ban on graduation prayers and that it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
___The appeals court rejected those claims, however, upholding a district court's decision that the policy is constitutional.
___"Simply put, the selection of a graduation speaker by a secular criterion (not controlled by the state) to deliver a message (not restricted in content by the state) does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because an autonomous student speaker may choose to deliver a religious message," the appeals court said in a majority opinion written by Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus.
___The families that sued the school board were expected to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
___The appeals court analyzed the prayer policy in light of two previous Supreme Court rulings on the issue.
___In Lee vs. Weisman, the Supreme Court banned school officials from ordaining and directing the performance of graduation prayers led by an outside clergyman.
___Unlike that case, the appeals court said: "No feature of the Duval County policy favors or endorses religion. The graduation policy is simply content-neutral and allows an autonomous elected speaker, selected by her class, to deliver a religious or secular message on an equal basis."
___The second case, Lemon vs. Kurtzman, established a three-prong test for resolving disputes involving the Establishment Clause. To be constitutional, the justices said, laws must have a "secular purpose," must "have a primary effect that neither advances or inhibits religion" and cannot foster "excessive entanglement" with government.
___The 11th Circuit said the Florida school policy has three secular purposes of allowing students to direct their own graduations, of solemnizing the event and of permitting student freedom of expression.
___The policy does not have a primary effect of advancing religion, the court said, because it allows a student to give a message on any subject. It does not excessively entangle church and state, the opinion continued, because school officials do not monitor or censor the student messages.
___In a dissenting opinion, however, two judges disagreed with the majority's interpretation at almost every point.
___
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