Court Asked to Bar Prayers at Public High School Graduations

In a far-reaching test of the separation of church and state, an apparently divided California Supreme Court was urged Wednesday to bar prayers at public high school graduation ceremonies.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California told the justices that graduation invocations, like organized classroom prayers, represent unconstitutional government-promoted religious worship that could force nonbelievers to “compromise their consciences.”

“Prayer is not permitted in any form in public elementary and secondary schools in this country,” attorney Carol A. Sobel argued before the court.

In reply, a lawyer for a San Bernardino County school district defended the widely used, non-sectarian prayers as a largely ceremonial observance that does little if anything to promote religion. These brief prayers were not intended to be instructive but to bring dignity to the occasion, he said.

“We recognize that this is a sensitive and complex area of constitutional law,” said attorney Christian M. Keiner. “But this longstanding California practice is constitutionally permissible.”

The role of religion in schools has long been a volatile issue. The U.S. Supreme Court nearly three decades ago barred state-sponsored classroom prayer--and more recently prohibited the moment of silence meant to encourage classroom prayer--but has never ruled squarely on graduation invocations. Other courts in the nation have been divided on the question.

The widely watched case before the state high court marks its first formal review of a church-state issue since a conservative majority emerged on the court in 1987. The court, which is due to decide within 90 days, seemed sharply split.

Justices Edward A. Panelli and Armand Arabian peppered the ACLU’s Sobel with skeptical questions, suggesting that they believe graduation invocations to be as legally permissible as the prayers that open legislative sessions or the religious reference in the “Pledge of Allegiance.”

Arabian suggested that civil libertarians were overreacting, figuratively comparing their legal attack on graduation prayers to a “preemptive strike with napalm.”

But other justices seemed to doubt the constitutionality of graduation prayers. As attorney Keiner defended the invocations, Justice Stanley Mosk remarked that Thomas Jefferson--noted for his reference to the “wall of separation” between church and state--must be “whirling in his grave.”

The case arose when two local taxpayers filed suit in June, 1986, challenging the opening and closing prayers at public high school graduation ceremonies in the Morongo Unified School District in San Bernardino County. The brief, nondenominational prayers have been delivered by local ministers and others for more than 50 years.

One such benediction said in part: “Dear father, we thank you for these graduates who have meant so much to us. We thank you for their energy, their enthusiasm, their sense of humor and their sense of life. May the years never diminish these traits.”

A trial court judge issued an order prohibiting the prayers but in September, 1989, a state Court of Appeal in San Bernardino reversed the order and upheld the prayers. Applying a three-part test developed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the appeal panel held that the invocations did not have a religious purpose, did not effectively advance religion and did not represent “excessive entanglement” between government and religion.

The ACLU, representing the taxpayers, appealed to the state Supreme Court. The appeal drew support from the American Jewish Congress, which urged the court to invoke the state Constitution if necessary to place greater restrictions on government involvement in religion than required by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The school district drew backing from the National Legal Foundation, a group opposing excessive restraints on religion, and the California School Boards Assn. The court’s ruling will have a broad effect in California, where most school districts currently use graduation prayers, authorities say.