Court Ok's Prayer at School Board Meetings
A federal court of appeals recently held that student read invocations at school board
meetings are allowed under a very limited exception to the Establishment Clause
called the legislative prayer exception.
American Humanist Association v. Birdville Independent School District (5th Cir. Mar. 20, 2017).
From 1997 to
2015, the Birdville Independent School District (BISD) has allowed elementary
or middle school students to deliver statements at the opening of each board meeting. In some cases, the students read poems or
essays, but on occasion, a student read a Christian prayer. In 2015, American Humanist Association (AHA)
and a BISD alum Isaiah Smith, filed suit claiming the invocations violated the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The district court
ruled in favor of the school district, finding that the legislative prayer
exception applied. AHA and Smith filed
separate appeals.
The legislative
prayer exception allows prayers to be given at legislative proceedings and
town-board meetings. However, as a general rule, prayers in public schools did not fall under the exception. The issue before the court was whether a school
board meeting is more like a legislative proceeding or a school activity. In the court’s view, school board meetings (which took place away from school
grounds, dealt with administrative issues, and did not involve students as
mandatory deliberative participants) were more like legislative proceedings than school activities. As a result, the court of appeals agreed with the district court decision allowing student invocations to be read at school board
meetings.
Post Authored by Amanda Riggs & Julie Tappendorf
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