A federal appellate court says a recent Supreme Court ruling on school prayer does not prevent Alabama students from praying in school in student-initiated settings.
“So long as the prayer is genuinely student-initiated, and not the product of any school policy which actively or surreptitiously encourages it, the speech is private and it is protected,” the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Oct. 19.
The appellate court had been asked by the U.S. Supreme Court justices to reconsider its ruling in a DeKalb County case after the high court ruled that a Santa Fe, Texas, school policy allowing student prayers before football games was unconstitutional.
Attorney General Bill Pryor hailed the decision as “a tremendous victory for the First Amendment.
“This is a victory for the public school students of Alabama and their right to pray and express their religious beliefs,” Pryor said in a statement released by his office.
The appellate court ruled that permitting student prayers in the Alabama case does not conflict with the Santa Fe decision, upholding its previous ruling.
“The Establishment Clause does not require the elimination of private speech endorsing religion in public places,” the 11th Circuit ruled.
“The Free Exercise Clause does not permit the state to confine religious speech to whispers or banish it to broom closets. If it did, the exercise of one’s religion would not be free at all,” the court said.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, challenged a federal court order by an Alabama federal judge, saying it unconstitutionally restricted students’ religious expression.
“This decision by the 11th Circuit puts to rest this issue and safeguards the First Amendment rights of students,” Sekulow said in a statement. “The decision also sends a strong signal that student-led, student-initiated prayer is still constitutionally protected in this country.”
The ACLU of Alabama sued on behalf of a DeKalb County educator and his son, a student in the county system.
“We’re extremely disappointed with the 11th Circuit’s decision,” said Jeanne Locicero, a law fellow with the ACLU of Alabama.
“We don’t believe that they applied the principles or the spirit of the Supreme Court’s decision in Santa Fe, Locicero added.
“They’ve created a false distinction by limiting Santa Fe to a particular student policy instead of taking into account the social context in which prayer happens at the schools, like at school-sponsored assemblies, with speakers over the public address system.”
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