Suppressed Speeches Fuel Religion-in-Schools Battle

Those Niemeyer boys are something else, they’ll tell you up here. Clean-cut, good kids. Even better students. Chris was valedictorian at Oroville High in 1998. Hot on his high-tops came Jason, top academic graduate in the class of ’99.

But instead of finishing high school awash in accolades, the brothers Niemeyer each ended senior year swamped by controversy, tussling with school administrators over God and graduation.

A devout evangelical Christian, Chris wanted to give a commencement speech extolling the merits of Jesus. One year later, his brother hoped to do much the same. But school officials, wary of straying into the no-man’s land separating church and state, broke with tradition and blocked the pair from addressing graduating classmates.

The result has been a lawsuit that now includes both brothers, another legal skirmish in America’s cultural slugfest over what role God should play in public schools. So far, the Niemeyers have lost every round in court, though they are launching an appeal. The federal district judge who ruled against them acknowledged that the case might reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

School prayer and the teaching of creationism have been roundly rebuffed by the courts for decades. The Niemeyer case, however, pits free speech rights against the nation’s tradition of keeping religion out of school affairs.

On a more personal level, it has been an unsettling episode for all involved--the Niemeyers, their family, school administrators, friends and classmates.

“I never imagined that something like this would ever happen to me or my family,” said Chris Niemeyer, 19, who just completed his freshman year at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego. “But I feel blessed that God has, for some reason, chosen us to be a part of his work.”

Divine intervention aside, the family’s lawsuit has been aided by free legal help from two attorneys backed by the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based group that champions religious causes.

“Free speech, and that includes talk about religion, is what makes the American Republic what it is,” said Steven Burlingham, one of the Niemeyers’ attorneys. “That’s kind of the price we pay. As a Christian, I have to be ready to listen to a Buddhist valedictory speech, or even hear some kid extol Satanism.”

But school district officials say a graduation ceremony is not the venue for such controversy, and should remain free of proselytizing that might upset those holding different beliefs. “This is not about a simple reference to God at graduation,” said Christian M. Keiner, the school’s attorney. “It’s about preaching from the podium.”

Keiner argued successfully in court that graduation is an extension of a school’s curriculum. As such, administrators hold an absolute right to dictate what goes on at a commencement ceremony, even if it means restricting the potentially controversial speech of students.

“To me, it’s disrespectful when you ignore the diversity of your classmates and say you’ve got the only answer,” said Larry Payne, Oroville High School principal. “I don’t see God that way.”

Payne says the legal battle with the Niemeyers is an extension of the nationwide fight between schools and adherents of a less tolerant brand of faith he dubs “ayatollah Christianity.” The brothers, he said, are being “willingly manipulated” by forces in the conservative Christian community.

Debate Divides Oroville Residents

The dispute has divided some folks in Oroville, a rural city of 12,650 in the far corner of the state’s Central Valley heartland, 70 miles north of Sacramento. The town is home to nearly 50 churches, many of them enclaves for conservative Christians. It also is something of a rural melting pot. Of the 1,000 students at Oroville High, one in three is a minority, most of them Asian or Latino.

Tim Ruiz, 18, said he has debated the Niemeyers’ case “countless times” with his dad. His father, a Catholic, didn’t believe it was appropriate to stress God in a public activity attended by people with so many different beliefs. The son, a Baptist, sees something of a double standard, noting that school administrators allowed a controversial Vietnam War mural “that offended a lot of people,” but shut down the Niemeyers.

Lawyers say the brothers’ case may be the first time that a valedictorian--let alone a pair who happen to be siblings--has mounted a legal challenge to a school district’s right to block a religion-themed graduation address.

It is an area of law that is muddled at best. The Supreme Court has yet to look at a case dealing with students proselytizing during a commencement speech. Conflicting lower court cases and legislative actions across the country haven’t settled matters.

In Alabama, state officials issued guidelines last year allowing students to make religious statements during commencement. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court opened the door in Texas for religious speech at graduation, then reversed course earlier this year and declared that a district could not let students deliver a sectarian message at commencement.

The Niemeyers’ passionate defense of their religious freedom is an extension of their everyday lives.

Chris, who served as student body president his senior year, helped run a campus Christian group that spread the word by handing out bibles and religious pamphlets along with scores of pizzas donated by Christian businesses. Jason, 17, is less vocal about his beliefs, but also holds Christianity as the guiding force in his life.

The family’s battle with school administrators erupted shortly before graduation last year. Faculty advisors became concerned when Chris handed over a copy of his speech. They also balked at the invocation planned by Ferrin Cole, a classmate and fellow leader of the Christian club.

Chris Niemeyer’s speech warned the audience that “the G-word and the J-word may appear” and advised anyone who might be offended to consider leaving. It then suggested that all people are “God’s children, through Jesus Christ’s death, when we accept his free love and saving grace in our lives.” It invited listeners to pattern their lives after Jesus and suggested that God seeks “a personal relationship with all of us.”

Such beliefs delivered in a school setting were nothing new for Chris. He often had made Christ a subject in compositions or book reports, he said, and not one teacher had ever balked. He also expressed surprise that his words might offend those of other faiths. He had grown up, the teenager reasoned, confronted in school by secular humanism, evolutionary theory and other beliefs that conflict with his faith. How was this different?

Administrators asked Chris Niemeyer and Cole to tone it down. “I thought I was going to broker a compromise,” recalled Supt. Barry Kayrell. “I’ve had ministers throughout the U.S. read his speech and say it was a sermon.”

Cole refused to buckle and got an attorney. Chris Niemeyer soon joined him, and the pair went to court in an effort to reverse the district’s decision.

Despite the legal wrangling, Chris said, he still had hoped to speak at the 1998 commencement. Payne said he gave Chris until 5 p.m. on the day of graduation to go over a revised speech, but the youth never showed. Chris insists no such deadline was set, and he went to graduation that evening believing that he would be able to say a few words explaining why he couldn’t deliver a full-blown talk.

When his turn came, Chris walked to the podium, only to be told by Payne and other district officials that he couldn’t speak. The crowd erupted in anger, shouting that the valedictorian should be allowed to give his address. After several tense minutes, the tearful youth walked down from the platform and was surrounded by a huddle of classmates.

Tense Moments at Ceremony

Not everyone was sympathetic. Delisa Freistadt, co-valedictorian, was bothered by the spectacle.

“I was relieved the court did not force me to listen to Ferrin’s invocation or Chris’ speech,” Freistadt, who is Jewish, said in a declaration filed in the legal case. “I wanted my graduation to be a time to celebrate a passage in our lives and to shed a few tears with friends, rather than turn into a religious circus.”

Payne repeatedly asked for quiet. An aluminum can, then a rock were thrown in his direction.

“I wondered at the time what Thomas Jefferson would do in those circumstances,” Payne recalled. “I’m thinking, ‘I guess this is what it takes to make the Constitution a living document.’ ”

Calm finally returned when the principal threatened to shut down the ceremony.

In December, U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton rejected damage claims brought by Chris Niemeyer and Cole, saying free speech protections didn’t give the pair a right to use graduation as a religious pulpit. They pressed ahead with a request for an injunction to keep the district from blocking future speeches, adding Jason Niemeyer to the lawsuit after he was named this year’s valedictorian.

Despite the lawsuit, Jason ran his proposed speech by administrators. Though less centered on religion than the address planned by his older brother, the speech concluded by talking about Christianity and encouraging “each and every person here to take advantage of the friendship that is offered us in Christ.”

On the advice of attorneys, administrators rejected the speech, and a revised version that deleted direct mention of Jesus.

Jason said he expected such results but still felt deflated and discriminated against. It sank in during a dress rehearsal for graduation, as others practiced their speeches.

“That reality hit me,” Jason recalled. “I was pretty bummed. But I felt like I couldn’t say anything different. It’s part of me, and it was my last chance to share my heart with my classmates.”

On June 10, just hours before graduation, Judge Karlton upheld the district’s right to block Jason from speaking and rejecting the final claims of his older brother and Cole.

With the case headed toward appeal, the Niemeyers face a difficult legal hurdle. The main protagonists are now out of high school, so the appeals court might choose to dodge the more profound constitutional questions and decide the issue is moot.

To that end, Burlingham added several unnamed students to the case, suggesting that future valedictorians might want to testify to their faith. Only one student was added to the lawsuit by name--the Niemeyers’ youngest brother, John, 14.

The incoming freshman, a 6-foot-2 basketball whiz who also gets terrific grades and is devoutly Christian, doesn’t seem perplexed by the prospect of a controversial senior year. “I don’t really worry about it,” he said. “I’m just going to let it happen.”