March 26, 2001
Court rejects school case
___WASHINGTON (ABP)--Declining to intervene in the gray area between free-speech rights and the Constitution's ban on establishment of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has turned down the appeal of a high-school student barred from giving a graduation speech deemed too religious by a California school district.
___Left standing by the high court March 5 was a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that actions by officials from the Oroville Union High School District "were reasonably taken" to avoid excessive church-state entanglement.
___The case involved a 1998 speech submitted in advance by a co-valedictorian that urged fellow students to accept Christ as Savior.
___School officials said the speech, as well as a prayer submitted in Jesus' name by a fellow student, were too sectarian for a public-school graduation. Both students refused to tone down the religious content of their messages, and the district prohibited them from being delivered.
___Barred from delivering the messages, co-valedictorian Chris Niemeyer and Ferrin Cole, the student elected to lead the graduation prayer, filed suit in district court. The case subsequently was appealed to the 9th Circuit.
___Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's 2000 ruling against organized school-sponsored prayer at public-school football games, the appellate court ruled in favor of the school district.
___"We conclude the district officials did not violate the students' freedom of speech," the court said. Refusing the submitted remarks "was necessary to avoid violating the Establishment Clause."
___Cole's invocation prayer would not have been "private speech," the court decided, because of the school district's authorization and the fact only a student elected by classmates was allowed to speak.
___Whether Niemeyer's speech was private or school sponsored, the appeals court said, was a tougher call.
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