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ACLU Charges U.S. Supreme Court 'Turns Its Back' on Religious Minorities
in Jacksonville School Prayer Case
December 10, 2001
MIAMI ? In a blow to the rights of religious minorities, the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear American Civil Liberties Union's appeal in the long and bitter dispute over school-sponsored prayers at graduation ceremonies in Duval County public schools.
Despite having struck down school-sponsored and student-led prayers at Sante, Fe, Texas football games last year, the High Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari in Adler et al. v. Duval County School Board. Although the Adler case addresses prayer at Jacksonville graduation ceremonies rather than football games, both cases raise similar questions about the constitutionality of permitting students to elect senior class "chaplains" to deliver prayers at school-sponsored events.
"This policy effectively allows the religious majority to impose its practices on members of religious minorities," said Ken Hurley, whose son and daughter, students in Jacksonville public schools, are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. I am saddened by the High Court's decision to turn its back on the rights of those who don't share the religious views of the majority. It is not a precedent I am happy about."
In a joint statement issued earlier today, ACLU cooperating attorneys D. Gray Thomas and William J. Sheppard added: "We are very disappointed that the court declined to review the Duval County policy, but we are assessing our options in light of this decision." Thomas & Sheppard filed suit in 1998 on behalf of several students and parents in the Duval County Public School District who challenged the school board's policies as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
ACLU of Florida cooperating attorneys from the Jacksonville law firm of Sheppard, White & Thomas filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville on May 15, 1998. 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.
At the conclusion of its 2000 term, the Supreme Court held in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe that the school district's policy of permitting its student body to vote whether to have prayers before football games violated the Establishment Clause.
In light of the Santa Fe decision, the U.S. Supreme Court then vacated an earlier ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which held graduation prayers to be constitutional. The Adler case was remanded back to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which upheld the legality, for a second time, of graduation prayers in schools.
