Valley Viewpoints Clash on Ruling on Student Prayers

An atheist leader and a Religious Right spokeswoman disagreed Monday on whether the U.S. Supreme Court was justified in allowing a federal appeals court decision to stand that could permit high school graduation ceremonies in which the majority of graduates voted to have a student-led prayer.

“I am disheartened. I thought the Constitution would protect us from the tyranny of the majority,” said Alexander Prairie, president of Atheists United, based in Sherman Oaks.

By contrast, Sara Divito Hardman, state director of the conservative Christian Coalition based in Tarzana, welcomed the news.

“This is a good trend, because things have been working against anything that smacks of God and religion,” Hardman said. “The majority have been controlled by a small minority of people who believe a different way.”

With high school graduation ceremonies two to three weeks away in the San Fernando Valley area, there was some concern that district officials advise schools whether the Supreme Court’s stance would permit student-led prayers on the programs.

“Individuals who feel strongly about school prayer could create some pressure,” said Cecelia Mansfield, vice president for education for the PTSA in the Valley.

Ron Apperson, legal adviser for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said his office would issue an opinion within a month on how the federal high court ruling compares with California’s relatively strict laws on church-state separation.

However, Apperson noted that California has been strict on no prayers at graduation. In 1986, the Los Angeles Board of Education prohibited prayers at high school graduations in the face of a lawsuit filed against the district by a Sherman Oaks parent who feared that his son’s graduation at Van Nuys High School would be marred by a religious observance, violating the religious establishment clause of the First Amendment.

An attorney for the district had held that because students plan their own graduation ceremonies and attendance is voluntary, the constitutionally dictated separation of church and state did not apply to the ceremonies. Nevertheless, a settlement of the lawsuit was worked out with the passing of the school board policy to prohibit prayers.

The Supreme Court action amounts to a “compromise” in church-state jurisprudence that points to leniency if prayer on school grounds is student-led and student-approved, said Richard Barrett, associate director of Public Affairs/Religious Liberty for a regional conference of Seventh-day Adventist churches based in Thousand Oaks.

Barrett, whose denomination has staunchly defended church-state separation, said that in situations where prayer is student-organized, rather than adult-led, “there is less danger of proselytization of impressionable youth.”

“Yet, I think we need to have a reasonable balance,” said Barrett, indicating he was not necessarily opposed to the Supreme Court’s latest stance.

Likewise, a liberal rabbi from Woodland Hills, Steven Jacobs, said that he did not feel threatened by the Supreme Court’s stance. “As long as it doesn’t become an argumentative issue disrupting the whole process, I think prayer adds to graduation ceremonies,” he said. “I think that the risk is worth it because this is a prayerful country,” said Jacobs, who is on Reform Judaism’s national social action commission.