American Jewish Congress Backs Censoring of Valedictory Speech

The American Jewish Congress says a Louisiana high school principal was right to require a graduating senior to delete all religious references from her valedictory speech in May, 1987.

The agency made this contention in a brief asking the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to uphold a lower court’s ruling issued last February in a case involving Angela Kaye Guidry.

When she was named valedictorian at Sam Houston High School in Moss Bluff, La., Guidry prepared a speech in which she challenged other students to “seek the Lord Jesus, believe in him and give your heart and life to him.” The principal, Kerry Durr, told her she would not be allowed to speak if she did not delete the religious references.

In its brief, the American Jewish Congress said Guidry “may well have been perplexed and angered by the principal’s refusal, seeing herself as . . . desiring only to offer the precious gifts of faith and salvation to the audience.”

But, the brief said, “the Constitution, which would protect her freedom to deliver her message at a church or at any public forum, does not permit sectarian religious sermons at public school-sponsored events.”