Source: https://4prayertoday.com/prayer-for-school-board-meeting/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:38:11+00:00

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Public school boards are an integral part of the public school system and must not advance or endorse religion. School boards cannot schedule prayer as a part of their meetings, invite local clergy to give invocations, or engage in religious ritual at any time during school-sponsored board meetings.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed prayers to be held as part of state legislative and local council meetings, those decisions do not grant blanket approval for prayer by school boards. The Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, permitted sectarian legislative prayers at a town’s meetings. The justices noted that the legal question was “fact sensitive” and depended upon “both the setting in which the prayer arises and the audience to whom it is directed.” 134 S.Ct. 1811, 1825 (2014); Id. at 1838 (Breyer, J., dissenting); Id. at 1851 (Kagan, J., dissenting).
Over 60 years of U.S. Supreme Court decisions have affirmed that religious ritual and indoctrination are inappropriate and illegal in public schools, including at graduations and other school-sponsored events. Over 50 years of Supreme Court precedent has firmly ruled school prayer or prayer at school events unconstitutional even if the prayer is non-denominational or supported by a majority. The First Amendment protects minority and individual rights of conscience from tyranny of the majority. A school board meeting is a school-sponsored event and is subject to Establishment Clause precedent involving public schools.
“The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce non-observing individuals or not. This is not to say, of course, that laws officially prescribing a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of such individuals. When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.” Id. (quoting Engel, 370 U.S. at 430-31).
Two of the most recent Supreme Court cases involving the Establishment Clause as it relates to prayer in public schools are instructive. In Lee v. Weisman, the Court held that prayers at a school graduation violate the Establishment Clause. 505 U.S. 577 (1992). In Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, the Court held that the school district violated the Establishment Clause when it approved so-called student-led prayers over the intercom at high school football games. 530 U.S. 290 (2000). The Court also ruled unconstitutional the practice of a school holding a vote of students over whether to have graduation prayer.
Lee and Santa Fe stand for the proposition that it is not a “get out of jail free card” for school boards to claim that student attendance at meetings is merely voluntary. Students attend school board meetings for a multitude of reasons and they have a right to attend without having their constitutional rights violated. Some school boards even include a student member, which adds further injury. As the school board prayers are “authorized by a government policy and take place on government property at government-sponsored school-related events,” they are considered government speech that is subject to the Establishment Clause. Santa Fe, 530 U.S. at 302.
Two U.S. circuit courts of appeals have expressly ruled that school board prayers are unconstitutional.
In contrast, the court pointed out that Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), the precedent upon which Galloway is predicated, is not a rubber-stamp that makes “government-sponsored prayer at all ‘deliberative public bodies’ . . . presumptively valid.” The case illustrates that school boards are an integral part of the public school system and are outside of the narrow holdings in Marsh and Galloway.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which encompasses Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, also struck down prayers at public school board meetings. In Doe v. Indian River School District, the court emphasized that school board prayer is analogous to other school prayer cases when it comes to protecting children from the coercion of school-sponsored prayer. 653 F.3d 256, 275 (3d Cir. 2011). In that case, the court also held that the school board meetings are in “an atmosphere that contains many of the same indicia of coercion and involuntariness that the Supreme Court has recognized elsewhere in its school prayer jurisprudence.” Id.
The court’s “decision premised on careful consideration of the role of students at school boards, the purpose of the school board, and the principles underlying the Supreme Court’s school prayer case law.” Id. at 281. The court concluded that the school board prayer policy “ above the level of interaction between church and state that the Establishment Clause permits.” Id. at 290.
Two other federal circuit courts have had occasion to address school board prayers. In both cases (which predate the Supreme Court’s ruling in Galloway), the prayers were found to be unconstitutional given that they were sectarian. See Doe v. Tangipahoa Parish Sch. Bd., 473 F.3d 188 (5th Cir. 2006), dismissed on other grounds, 494 F.3d 494 (5th Cir. 2007) (finding a school board’s practice of opening meetings with sectarian prayer unconstitutional); Bacus v. Palo Verde Unified Sch. Dist., 52 Fed. Appx. 355, (9th Cir. 2002)(unpublished) (finding that a school board violated the Establishment Clause in allowing prayers “in the name of Jesus”).
Public school boards are not an entity separate from the public school; they are integral to public education and cannot be disassociated from the students they serve. Members of the public school board set the tone. If they model disrespect for the secular principle that undergirds our public school system, they consequently signal disrespect for the rights of conscience of a captive audience of impressionable students under their authority, and their parents. They send a message that they will not be guardians of the constitutional rights of students, but rather consider their public trust to be an opportunity to force their personal religious views on others.
Families and the community rely on public school boards to set policies, procedures and standards for education. These discussions occur and decisions are made during regularly scheduled meetings on school property. Just as public school teachers cannot inculcate prayer, public school boards cannot do so.
The radical left has been attacking both public displays and private practice of Christianity with increasing fervor, but one court has finally pushed back.
A Texas appeals court has ruled that voluntary student-led prayers are not a violation of the First Amendment and can therefore be recited at school board meetings.
A federal appeals court said on Monday a Texas school board may open its meetings with student-led prayers without violating the U.S. Constitution.
In a 3-0 decision, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal by the American Humanist Association, which said the practice by the Birdville Independent School District violated the First Amendment’s prohibition of a government establishment of religion.
The appeals court also reversed a lower court judge’s denial of “qualified immunity” to school board members, and dismissed the case against them. Birdville serves Haltom City, Texas, a suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth.
The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling which tossed the lawsuit, citing a 2014 Supreme Court ruling allowing prayers at a town council meeting in Greece, New York.
President Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, may herself be an advocate for introducing prayer in school.
In 2000, a Wall Street Journal article described DeVos as an activist who spent time “crisscrossing Michigan in a huge Lincoln Navigator with a Bible in the seat pocket.” She would start and end some meetings with voucher supporters in prayer.
The bottom line is, most understand that offering a prayer before a meeting is no violation of the separation of church and state, nor is it a ‘coercion’ or endorsement of Christianity.
Circuit Judge Jerry Smith wrote the decision allowing prayer before school board meetings.
Comment: Do you agree with the court’s ruling that prayer should be allowed at school board meetings? Share your thoughts with us below.

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