[1]WASHINGTON (BP)–The Department of Education’s guidelines on constitutionally protected prayer and religious speech have resulted in a drop in complaints from public school students and teachers, Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice says.
The guidelines were released in February, and schools had until March 15 to tell their state education departments they are in compliance. State officials had until April 15 to submit that information to the federal government.
Most schools have complied, although many schools still have not, the Associated Press reported. The remaining schools are expected eventually to be in compliance and are receiving leniency from the education department, the AP said.
Sekulow, chief counsel of the Virginia-based ACLJ, told Baptist Press the number of complaints to his organization involving public schools is down — a noteworthy occurrence being that springtime graduations often result in an increase.
“Usually at graduation time” the ACLJ is “literally inundated with calls [and] questions on the issue of prayer at graduation ceremonies,” he said.
But that is not the case this year.
[2]“[W]hile we’ve had a number of calls, they’ve all been able to be resolved easily, and there’s a lot more uniformity, because students and school administrators understand exactly what the rules are,” he said.
The rules outline what is and is not allowed constitutionally. For example, students are allowed to read a Bible during lunchtime and express their faith in their homework. Schools, though, are prohibited from endorsing a religion by, for instance, encouraging students to pray.
Schools not complying are faced with the loss of federal money.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the guidelines were necessary because “liberal advocacy” groups had misled school officials into believing that “public school property is to be not only a religiously neutral place for government sponsored expression but a place where student religious expression is suppressed or censored.”
Sekulow agreed.
“There has been so much confusion over what students can and cannot do, what teachers can and cannot do,” he said. “I thought the guidelines were a good idea.”
[3]Land praised Secretary of Education Rod Paige’s guidelines.
“Secretary Paige’s guidelines make it abundantly clear that our nation’s public school systems do not leave their First Amendment rights of religious expression at the boundary of public school property,” Land told BP. “… This helps in that there are consequences for ignoring the First Amendment in a public school — immediate and real consequences.”
Each year, schools must submit a letter stating they are in compliance. The deadline in the future will be Oct. 1, not March 15. Last year’s deadline was moved back to March of this year. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required the secretary to issue guidance on constitutionally protected prayer in public schools.
President Clinton’s administration submitted guidelines, “but they had no enforcement mechanism,” Sekulow said. The Bush administration’s guidelines “are much more comprehensive,” he added.
Some schools likely will say they are complying when they are truthfully not, Sekulow said. In fact, the guidelines say that schools filing a compliance form in “bad faith” are subject to losing federal funds.
“That’s going to be up to those of us that litigate those issues to bring those to the department of education’s attention,” he said. “… There are school districts that try to give their own interpretation to the guidelines, but the guidelines actually are quite clear.”
A summary of the guidelines follows:
— Students may read their Bible, pray before meals and pray or study “religious materials” with other students during recess, lunch and other times out of class. Specifically, the guidelines say that students “may pray when not engaged in school activities or instruction….” Such prayer is subject to the same rules “designed to prevent” disruptions.
— Students may organize prayer groups, religious clubs and “see you at the pole” gatherings “to the same extent that students are permitted to organize other non-curricular” groups.
— Teachers may pray or take part in Bible studies before school or during lunch, or when it is clear “that they are not participating in their official capacities.”
— School officials must neither “encourage nor discourage” students from participating in school-initiated “moments of silence.” Students are free to participate or not participate.
— Schools that have a practice of dismissing students for non-religious needs — at the request of parents — must do the same for students with religious needs. For example, a school could dismiss briefly a Muslim student who requests time alone to pray during Ramadan.
— Students may express their religious beliefs in homework and other assignments “free from discrimination based on the religious content” of the assignment.
— Assembly speakers may not be selected based on their beliefs. A speaker selected by students may not have his speech restricted because of its religious content. The school is free to have disclaimers saying the speaker’s opinion is his, and not the school’s.
— Schools “may not mandate or organize prayer” at graduations but also should not restrict the religious expression of students or other speakers. The school is free to have disclaimers saying the speaker’s opinion is his, and not the school’s.
— Schools must make their facilities available to organizers of “privately sponsored religious baccalaureate ceremonies” if those same schools make their facilities available to other private groups.
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The complete text of the education guidelines is available at: https://www.ed.gov/inits/religionandschools/prayer_guidance.html.
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