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Silencing student religious beliefs
JUST LAW AND RELIGION
Michael Kessler
Imagine you are 18 years old and worked hard to be the best student in your class. You are the valedictorian and are invited to give a brief speech at graduation. You want to thank those important to your successful journey, including mentioning the importance of your religious belief to your academic success. And the principal tells you that you are not permitted to do so.
Outrageous, you say? It happens as the result of overzealous misunderstandings of Establishment Clause precedent.
Renee Griffith was the 2008 valedictorian of her high school class in the Butte School District No. 1. Part of young Ms. Griffith's speech proposed this reference to her religious belief:
I learned to persevere these last four years, even through failure or discouragement, when I had to stand for my convictions. I can say that my regrets are few and far between. I didn't let fear keep me from sharing Christ and his joy with those around me. I learned to impart hope, to encourage people to treat each day as a gift. I learned not to be known for my grades or for what I did during school, but for being committed to my faith and morals and being someone who lived with a purpose from God with a passionate love for him.
The school board had adopted a policy that said, in part:
Graduation is an important event for students and their families. In order to assure the appropriateness and dignity of the occasion, the District sponsors and pays for graduation ceremonies and retains ultimate control over their structure and content. District officials may not invite or permit members of the clergy to give prayers at graduation. Furthermore District officials may not organize or agree to requests for prayer by other persons at graduation, including requests from students. The District may not prefer the beliefs of some students over the beliefs of others, coerce dissenters or nonbelievers, or communicate any endorsement of religion.
This policy gets it exactly right: the Court has continuously found that state control of a religious exercise implies endorsement of a particular religious view, unconstitutionally coerces those not sharing in that belief to participate in a religious exercise, and impermissibly provides state control and direction of a religious exercise. This has been justified as much to protect religious exercise from state control, as to protect a state-sponsored forum from being hijacked for religious purposes.
But poor Renee Griffith was not a state actor. She was a kid who did well and wanted to share with her peers and their families who she thought helped her on that successful journey. She was not proselytizing and, more importantly, she was not speaking on behalf of the school district. The reason she was invited was not for the particular views she was sharing, but because her hard work gave her status as one of ten valedictorians.
But the bureaucrats, presumably scared of litigation, said no. Supt. Charles Uggetti and Principal John Metz refused to let her speak at the ceremony after reviewing the speech and telling her she had to remove references to God and Christ that were contained in the portion of the speech quoted above.
She refused, was excluded, and sued, claiming that she was excluded in violation of her First Amendment religious rights.
The Montana Thirteenth Judicial District Court construed Griffith's challenge to be an establishment clause claim--that is, whether the Butte School District was within their right to maintain control over the graduation exercise. In order to do so, and not appear to endorse a particular religious view, they thought it necessary to excise religion out of the public speech of young Ms. Griffith. They relied on an earlier case, Cole v. Oroville Union High School District, 228 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir. 2000), which held that the principal's control over the student speeches would amount to endorsement of any of the content of those speeches. Thus, to maintain a stance of official non-endorsement, the students had to scrub their lives of religion in order to speak publicly. Otherwise, the District claimed they would have to open the forum to others to express their own religious beliefs.
This is utter hogwash. Griffith's challenge does not present an establishment clause question (what religious speech may the school include permissibly in the ceremony). The case presents a free exercise question: what should Ms. Griffith be able to say as part of her invited speech due to her academic standing when that speech is an expression of her own views. When the school opens a limited forum on the basis of grades (only 10 students earned the privilege to speak), and then ask students to speak about their success, the school invites students to discuss the range of influences that mattered to them, in achieving academic success. If the forum will be open at all, then the students should be able to speak freely about what motivated and sustained them, even if it opens the door to the unorthodox, the odd, and even the religious influences on their academic lives. Religion is not "inappropriate" or disruptive to that ceremony, nor does one valedictorian speaking about religion imply anything about an official endorsement. She could just as well have spoken about her work for an advocacy organization or a political campaign and there would likewise be no official school endorsement of those particular views merely due to her uttering them.
This case sits at a far distance from others, where the principal or students might invite some religious views (and not others) to be expressed for their own sake. Inviting an opening and closing prayer is an official stamp of governmental approval of that particular doctrinal view. That is impermissible for many reasons. And religious people, if they really think about it, should not want the government (which many conservative religious people claim cannot do anything right, anyway!) getting involved in deciding which doctrines are correct and proper and fitting for public ceremonies.
Rachel Griffith, on the other hand, should be able to talk appropriately and candidly about all those parts of her life--particularly those at the core of her being--that sustained her to achieve the good results of academic success. Forcing her to delete those references is a violation of her religious freedom and it diminishes all of our liberties.
Dr. Michael Kessler is Assistant Director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Georgetown University.
By Michael Kessler |
March 20, 2010; 11:30 PM ET
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Just Law and Religion
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Posted by: ZZim | March 22, 2010 11:55 AM
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Mr. Kessler,
Yes, FarnazMansouri, I would be as up in arms. Or if she mentioned her devotion to Wiccanism, or that she was agnostic, or had a fondness for the transcendentalism of Walt Whitman.
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Perhaps. However, such incidents do not much occur, do they? And why is that?
HOwever, even if one did, I would object. The Valedictory Address is neither an occasion for proselytizing nor for expressing gratitude for one's faith or religious study.
Now, the poetry of Walt Whitman is another matter, entirely. With that, I would have no problem. I might even recommend quotations from some of his letters, most likely those concerning his assistance to dying Union soldiers.
Whitman's writings, though sometimes, effusive, overblown, speak the human in humanity. Even in these wretched times, Whitman gives one hope.
Posted by: FarnazMansouri | March 22, 2010 2:09 AM
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MJK62:
'......I would be as up in arms. Or if she mentioned her devotion to Wiccanism, or that she was agnostic, or had a fondness for the transcendentalism of Walt Whitman.'
Actually I'd prefer to hear a young valedictorian go on at at length about the positive influences of ANY OF THE ABOVE rather than the same dull predictable spiel about how believing in Jesus has helped to achieve that 4.0 grade point average, blah, blah, blah. The USA is steeped and marinated in this mythological fiction. I think there's a good reason for sparing audiences (that might not agree with) an individual's religious views.
Hearing a gifted student proclaim inspiration from virtually ANY other set of mythical beliefs would be both surprising and refreshing.....
You'd think such a a smart girl would be well beyond all those bible school fables anyway. And let's not forget - we know for sure that our famous author/poet actually said and wrote all that stuff with his name on it. Yes Virginia, there really was a Walt Whitman!
Posted by: persiflage | March 21, 2010 11:08 PM
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"Also, I wonder if Mr. Kessler would be so much up in arms if a student credited her commitment to learning to her years of Talmud study." Posted by: FarnazMansouri
Yes, FarnazMansouri, I would be as up in arms. Or if she mentioned her devotion to Wiccanism, or that she was agnostic, or had a fondness for the transcendentalism of Walt Whitman.
Posted by: mjk62 | March 21, 2010 10:25 PM
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Michael,
"Rachel Griffith, on the other hand, should be able to talk appropriately and candidly about all those parts of her life--particularly those at the core of her being--that sustained her to achieve the good results of academic success."
She is able to do this, just about anywhere she wants, but not at a state-sponsored graduation ceremony.
"Forcing her to delete those references is a violation of her religious freedom and it diminishes all of our liberties."
This is simply something that you want to believe is true.
Posted by: PSolus | March 21, 2010 5:15 PM
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Something close happened at a relative's high school. Here is the bigotry of it all. When I brought up the question of what if another student had gotten the top honors and wanted to get up and thank their beliefs in Wicca or another religion? They said they would probably not attend.
Posted by: MarkinTX | March 21, 2010 4:10 PM
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I have to agree with Paganplace on this. The Valedictory address is not intended to be an occasion for proselytizing.
Also, I wonder if Mr. Kessler would be so much up in arms if a student credited her commitment to learning to her years of Talmud study.
Posted by: FarnazMansouri | March 21, 2010 3:53 PM
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The author:
""But poor Renee Griffith was not a state actor. ""
The only problem there is, especially in terms of that school policy, she *was.* You yourself quoted where the school takes responsibility for the content of such speeches: being invited to give the valedictory address (representing the student body, not so much onesself) doesn't *entitle* one to use those present for a captive audience and appropriate the whole day for religious proselytizing.
Posted by: APaganplace | March 21, 2010 11:22 AM
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EVERYONE IN THE USA HAS THE RIGHT TO BELEIVE IN WHAT EVER THEY WANT JUST SO IT IS NOT FORCED ON ANY OTHERS. WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND?
Posted by: usapdx | March 21, 2010 10:53 AM
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Commencement ceremonies are school-sponsored events. If you want to preach or testify, find someplace to do it where you have an audience that wants to hear a sermon or a testimony, not someplace with a captive audience.
Posted by: lepidopteryx | March 21, 2010 8:41 AM
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Interesting case. It appears to me that the court's reasoning is that if the school has the power to limit speech and chooses not to do so, then it is therefore PROMOTING what someone else has freely said.
I think Mr. Kessler has the right of it. If I invite someone to speak for non-religious reasons, and she chooses to discuss religious matters, then she should be allowed to do so.
It's a fine distinction, but I think Mr. Kessler is splitting the hair in the right place.
PS - Can we PLEASE get Newsong1 banned from these forums?