Board amends school prayer rule

By Emily Richmond

Friday, March 14, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

The Clark County School Board voted Thursday to ban organized prayer at graduation ceremonies but reiterated that individual speakers will be allowed to express themselves freely.

Under the new policy, prayer at graduation could be offered by individual speakers if the school district drops its policy of reviewing all speakers' comments ahead of time.

Superintendent Carlos Garcia said that won't happen. The existing procedure of reviewing speeches will continue, and religious comments will be edited out, he said. However, impromptu remarks cannot be controlled, he added.

"In reality we do not have student-led prayer at graduations," Garcia told the board after being asked for his opinion of the proposed regulation. "If a student happens to mention it while they're up there, it's free speech."

The vote comes two weeks after the board first refused to adopt a resolution banning prayer that would bring the district in line with recent court rulings, a move legal advisers said could jeopardize $70 million in federal funds.

The first draft of the regulation banned graduation benedictions and invocations outright. The revised regulation states when speakers are picked using "genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression," their comments are not attributable to the school and can't be restricted.

The revision didn't satisfy members of the Nevada chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who said they plan to move ahead with a lawsuit challenging the regulation.

"It would be a terrible waste of time and money to force us to litigate," Gary Peck, executive director of the Nevada chapter, said. "This isn't about the ACLU telling you what to do. This is about obeying the law of the land and the School Board trustees upholding their oath of office to defend the Constitution."

If schools choose to stop reviewing speeches, the regulation calls for administrators to make a disclaimer at the beginning of graduation ceremonies noting the speakers' comments are their own. But that does not change the fact that the audience is being subjected to prayer, Allen Lichtenstein, senior counsel for the Nevada ACLU, said.

"This isn't a Bible club or gathering around the flagpole in the morning to pray, both of which the ACLU supports and defends," Lichtenstein said. "Graduation is a school function with a captive audience. That's the essential distinction."

School Board member Larry Mason, the only dissenting vote, shared a similar view in explaining why he wouldn't support the resolution.

"Our founding fathers gave us the freedom of religion, but they also gave us the freedom from religion," Mason said. "We sometimes forget that. For every person who has a right to pray, there's someone who has the right not to."

Clark County School District legal staff proposed changing the regulation in light of recent federal court rulings that found benedictions and invocations at graduations were unconstitutional. The district needed to bring its own regulations in line with federal law or risk $70 million in funding.

Because school administrators review comments by speakers beforehand, allowing prayer amounts to school sponsorship of religion, William Hoffman, attorney for the district, said.

Hoffman said the revised regulation was taken from guidance on graduation prayers provided to schools by the U.S. Education Department. Hoffman, along with school board attorney Ann Bersi, said they were satisfied the regulation complied with the law.

But Peck said it isn't federal education officials who determine the law -- it's the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, both of which have handed down stricter rules for when school prayer is and isn't allowable.

The board heard from about a dozen members of the public, including several students, nearly all of whom urged the board to continue to allow prayer at graduation.

The debate is not just about the right of free speech but about teaching tolerance for different points of view, Patricia Head of Las Vegas told the board.

"We have a right to speak our minds when making personal remarks," said Head, who described herself as the grandmother of eight, great-grandmother of 18 and great-great-grandmother of three. "Someone in the Muslim religion isn't going to change my opinion, but I will listen respectfully."

Trustee Denise Brodsky said the debate surrounding the regulation highlighted what she saw as a double standard.

"'In God we trust' is our nation's motto," said Brodsky, her voiced choked with emotion. "Our public schools are told to teach children tolerance and understanding, but when they try to express themselves religiously at a defining moment like graduation, it's time for double standards."