No Separation of Students From Prayer on Campus

Every morning, Arcadia High School seniors Catherine Yao, Lucy Li and a dozen of their schoolmates get up at 5 a.m. so they can be at school by 6 to pray before classes begin.

Gathering in the center of the public school campus, they walk up three steps and form a circle. They pray -- some quietly, others aloud as the spirit moves them. Then the members of the Christian group, some affiliated with the nondenominational Transformations Community Church and the Campus Christian Club, do a “prayer walk” around the campus. Sometimes they pray for a specific student or teacher. They also pray for Arcadia, Los Angeles, the nation and the world.

“God, I just ask for your revival. We want to see reformation in L.A.,” Yao prayed recently, holding a Bible, her closed eyes tilted heavenward.

She joined the prayer group at the school of 4,000 students, 65% of them Asian, and said it turned her life around. “I have a purpose and I see something that is bigger than myself,” she said.

Li said she always feels “empowered” and “uplifted” after the prayer service.

Their organized worship on a public school campus might startle outsiders concerned about the separation of church and state. But such prayer groups in schools have become more common since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 upheld the Equal Access Act of 1984, in which Congress said schools accepting federal aid must not discriminate against groups based on the “religious, political, philosophical or other content of the speech at such meetings.”

In an 8-1 decision, written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court held that the Equal Access Act did not violate the constitutional separation of church and state. Called the Mergens’ case, the dispute arose after officials at Omaha’s Westside High School turned down a request to form an extracurricular Christian club.

“Essentially, what the court said was that so long as such activity is student-initiated and student-led, it did not violate the Constitution,” said Frank Manion, a senior attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, the public interest law firm that won the favorable ruling.

“In fact, the court said it was a constitutional right of the students themselves to engage in such prayer. It makes a distinction between prayer engaged in by school officials and prayer engaged in by school students.”

But 15 years later, many people don’t know about the decision or about federal guidelines allowing student religious clubs at public schools, Manion said. “We get calls about this all the time,” he said.

Gene Kapp, a center spokesman, said he is not aware of an organization that tracks the number of schools where student-led prayers are held. But he said he believed that such services have become widespread across the nation.

Robert Boston, a spokesman for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said his organization has never had any problem with Christian students gathering voluntarily to pray at public schools. “That’s the type of school prayer we have always supported,” he said.

But, he added, “the same right must be extended to all faiths. If Jewish students, Muslim students or even atheist students want to get together and do their own thing, they must have the same right,” he said.

Many other school prayer groups meet weekly during lunchtime, said Pastor Jonathan Ngai of the Transformations Community Church in Rosemead. He prays some mornings with the Arcadia students, although he is careful to stay just outside the campus to avoid violating the court decision.

On Tuesday, the first day of the school year, 28 people, including half a dozen alumni, Ngai and his wife and co-pastor Sharon, held a service on the sidewalk just outside Arcadia High.

Ngai, a former youth pastor at the First Chinese Baptist Church in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, and his wife are graduates of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. They started the Transformations church in their Rosemead home with 15 teenagers. The church now has 80 members, all high school and college students, and also runs Cafe Selah in El Monte, a gathering place for young people.

“This is going to be the year of the Lord at Arcadia High School, when your spirit is going to be poured out upon this campus,” prayed Ngai, whose church is observing its second anniversary Sunday.

Accompanied by a guitarist, they sang: “We are knocking, knocking on the door of heaven. Crying, crying for this generation. Praying for your name to be known in all the earth.”

Most students walking onto the academically strong campus -- decked out with “Welcome Class of 2009!” “Welcome Back!” and “School is Fun” signs -- paid no attention. A male student took a quick look as he walked by, muttering, “This is weird.”

But Nina Kim, a junior, stood under a tree and watched. She said she appreciated the group and their prayers.

“It’s so cool,” she said. “It’s so nice.”

Arcadia High’s principal, David Vannasdall, said the school meets the constitutional Equal Access requirements by offering space to more than 60 student groups, including academic, ethnic and religious clubs. Those organizations are allowed, he explained, as long as they are voluntary, do not infringe on other students’ rights and do not cut into school time.

“We feel it is important to encourage and support students to pursue their interest outside the classroom which connects them to the school on a deeper level,” Vannasdall said.

There is a history of prayer at Arcadia High. Michael Whang began his prayer walk at the school as a sophomore in 2001. Sometimes, he was the only one praying. For the last two years, students have been doing it daily in greater numbers, said Whang, an alumnus who still participates.

“Our generation thinks God’s so boring, but following the Lord is fun,” Whang said. “We are so satisfied by instantaneous pleasure. If it doesn’t load up in, like 30 seconds, then it’s not worthy of our time. That’s inferior pleasure.”

Whang, who is studying at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, said, “As you grow older, you realize that there is a depth to what we’re doing. It’s something that comes from deep within the heart of God.”

Getting up at 5 a.m. isn’t easy even for the most devoted prayer warriors. Until he started his freshman year at UC Berkeley last month, Christopher Go counted on a friend to wake him up with a phone call for morning prayers at Arcadia High.

Go met Ngai at the First Chinese Baptist Church and joined his youth-oriented church. His parents checked out Transformations to satisfy themselves that it is a legitimate church and now sometimes attend services there.

“We are on fire to find out more” about God, Go said. “God has incredible grace.”