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ACLU to Appeal Court Ruling on Jacksonville School Prayer
March 16, 2000
JACKSONVILLE ? Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida announced today that they expect to seek review in the Supreme Court of yesterday's Court of Appeals ruling in the Jacksonville school prayer case.
The lawsuit (Adler v. Duval County School Board) was brought on behalf of several students and parents in the Duval County Public School District who contend that the school board's policies violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution by not protecting members of minority religions from the religious majority.
In May 1999, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals declared the school board's policy unconstitutional. The policy permits selection of senior class "chaplains" and the scheduling of invocations, benedictions and prayers at graduation ceremonies. However, that decision was later set aside and the case scheduled to be heard by the full 13-judge court.
"We are disappointed in the majority decision and believe it overlooked substantial facts in the case that would compel the opposite result," said D. Gray Thomas, Jacksonville attorney who, along with William Sheppard, serves as ACLU cooperating counsel in the school prayer case.
"Sectarian prayers at public school commencements are constitutionally inappropriate and insensitive to the increasing diversity of the country's public school population," said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. "The school board cannot impose prayer on a public school ceremony, and they cannot evade their constitutional responsibilities by claiming that they have simply transferred that authority to a designated student 'chaplain.'"
"The practices at graduation exercises in Duval County are a government endorsement of religion," added Simon. "Graduation ceremonies are an occasion of singular importance for all of the seniors and their families, and conformity with an officially sanctioned set of religious views should not be the price of attending one's own high school graduation."
Background of the case
This lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville on May 15, 1998, by the Jacksonville law firm of Sheppard, White & Thomas, acting as cooperating attorneys for the ACLU of Florida.
A previous lawsuit with similar claims was brought in Jacksonville by the ACLU in 1994 but was vacated as moot in 1997 prior to a final decision on its merits by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit after the students who had brought the earlier suit graduated.
Following the 1992 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Lee v. Weisman prohibiting "prayer, benediction, or invocation at any graduation ceremonies" conducted or sponsored by a public school board, the Duval County School Board adopted a policy authorizing students to deliver prayers and religious messages at commencements. The policy and guidelines contain no requirement that the prayers and other religious messages at graduation ceremonies be non_sectarian.
As one example, the following prayer was offered at the June 10, 1993, Jean Ribault Senior High School commencement:
Help us to understand that we must help the one who plunders in some agony or strife, for we know it must be our Christian duty to pay heed to every pride, and deny no soul the kindness of some need we can supply. Lord help us to realize that you made us all to matter to you, our maker, as well as to each other. These and other blessings we ask in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen
In May 1999, a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled that "The Duval County school system's policy of permitting graduating students to decide, through majority/plurality vote, whether to have student representatives give unrestricted messages at the beginning and closing of graduation ceremonies facially violates the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]."
