ACLU Lawsuit Targets School Prayers in Tiny Missouri Town
by Jim Brown and Jody Brown
August 28, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A small Missouri school district is staring down a lawsuit over school prayer. The suit alleges that teacher-led prayer during two school assemblies violated the constitutional rights of students. Two students and their mother have filed suit against the Doniphan School District in southeast Missouri. Filed on their behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri, the lawsuit claims that on two successive days in May 2005, school assemblies at Doniphan Elementary School began with teachers leading a prayer. The ACLU notes in a press release that the family bringing the suit is "not Christian," while both prayers were "Christian."
According to the ACLU, when the district superintendent was contacted about the matter, he offered to remedy the matter by telling school administrators they should invite a student, not a teacher, to lead school prayers in the future. That response, says the ACLU, demonstrates the superintendent's "lack of understanding" of both the Constitution and the district's own policies.
"Such religious activities are not only inconsistent with the policies of the Doniphan R-I School District," states the lawsuit, "but also constitute an establishment of religion in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States." The suit seeks an injunction preventing both teacher- and student-led prayer during in-school assemblies to prevent what the ACLU describes as "irreparable harm" to students who are "coerce[d]" into participating in "religious exercises."
Liberty Counsel, which is based in Orlando, Florida, has offered to represent the Doniphan School District free of charge in the case. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, says it is unfortunate, but there is a difference between when the Constitution says and what today's courts are saying about school prayer.
Mat Staver | |
"Under the current interpretation by the courts, right or wrong, the ultimate result would be if you have a mandatory prayer in the public school classroom, then that would be ruled unconstitutional," Staver explains. "If the students, however, had an opportunity for a moment of silence, that is permissible; or if they wanted to voluntarily pray or have a moment of silence among themselves, certainly that is permissible as well." In this particular case and under the current interpretation, says the Liberty Counsel founder, such prayers likely would be ruled unconstitutional. Staver contends the ACLU is driving "anti-religious bigotry."
"[T]hey're trying to use their legal threats as a bully-club to really silence people of faith and to rewrite our American history," he asserts. Still, the attorney has high hopes for the future. "I believe one good thing, however, is on the horizon," he says, "and that is we have a new Supreme Court -- and that Supreme Court is not going to be as hostile to religion as the courts of past decades."
The case is Jane Doe, et al. v. Doniphan R-I School District, et al. School superintendent Kevin Sandlin declined comment for this story.
