Home » About » Newsletters » June 2001
"ACLU to Appeal School
Prayer Ruling to Supreme Court"
By Alessandra Soler
Public Education Coordinator
The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta has once again upheld the legality of student-led prayers at graduations ceremonies for Jacksonville's public schools, disagreeing with a previous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In an 8-4 decision, the appeals court cited differences between the school prayer policy in Duval County and the policy in Santa Fe, Texas. The court upheld Duval County's policy, while the Santa Fe policy — which addresses prayer at football games rather than graduation ceremonies — was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court at the conclusion of its June 2000 term.
The ACLU of Florida will file a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging the May 11th ruling. "The Duval County School District's 'Graduation Prayer' policy is less about the free speech rights of the majority than it is about the power of the majority to impose its religious practices on children who are members of religious minorities," said Howard L. Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida.
The ACLU's petition for review will argue that the policy not only violates the Establishment Clause, but that it was created in 1992 to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling that same year in a case involving graduation prayers. The Supreme Court ruled that public schools cannot invite clergy members to deliver prayers at commencement ceremonies.
"The 11th Circuit tried in every possible way to come up with distinctions between the policies in Duval and Santa Fe, while completely ignoring the history of the graduation prayer policy in Duval County," said ACLU of Florida Legal Director Randall Marshall. "The key sameness between them is that, as the Supreme Court said in Santa Fe, the only reason there's an election is because the school board wills it. "
The ACLU filed suit seeking to stop the practice in Duval County in 1994. ACLU cooperating attorneys Bill Sheppard and Gray Thomas are representing families and school children in the Duval County school system. Last year, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that graduation prayers were constitutional. The ACLU appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which then struck down student-led prayers at football games in Texas three months later. The nation's high court vacated the appeals court decision in the Duval case and sent the case back to the appeals court in Atlanta for further re-examination by judges in light of the Santa Fe case.
