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Schools Challenged to Protect Graduation Speakers Religious Liberty

by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
May 24, 2005

(AgapePress) - A Florida law firm that specializes in protecting the constitutional rights of citizens has once again unveiled its annual "Friend or Foe Graduation Campaign." For the third year in a row, Liberty Counsel is putting high schools across the U.S. on notice about respecting students' religious freedom at commencement exercises.

The Orlando-based law firm says it will be a friend to those schools that take a neutral position regarding messages presented by students at graduation ceremonies. However, the firm promises to be a foe of those schools that censor the religious viewpoints or content of student speakers.

[Photo compliments of Liberty Counsel]
Mat Staver   
Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver says students and other speakers do not lose their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or free exercise of religion when they step onto the graduation podium. "Religious speech or prayer is not second-class speech," he asserts. "To the contrary, it is preeminently protected by the First Amendment."

Therefore, Staver adds, when high school graduation speakers go to the podium, "They must be free to thank their friends, their family, to thank God, and yes, to thank Jesus Christ." On the other hand, he notes, Liberty Counsel is prepared to file lawsuits against schools that violate any student commencement speaker's rights under the Constitution of the United States.

The Liberty Counsel spokesman says the purpose of the Friend or Foe Graduation Campaign is to let schools know that they can face possible legal action for restricting or forbidding a student's religious speech in a graduation prayer or public address. Yet, he points out, many school officials do not realize that they are cannot lawfully do so.

"You would think that [the school officials] would get the message after so many years," Staver says. "But what we see, unfortunately, is that they forget easily -- or they forget intentionally -- and they decide that they will either censor the message or they will censor religious content."

In the interest of informing students, parents, and school officials about the law, Liberty Counsel has posted a detailed legal memorandum excerpted from Staver's recently released book, Eternal Vigilance: Knowing and Protecting Your Religious Freedom (Broadman and Holman, 2005). Liberty Counsel also offers guidance, education, and free legal representation to those schools that protect the free-speech rights of students.

Staver says the Supreme Court has never banned religious speech and prayer from public school graduations and only prohibited "school-sponsored prayer." He says as long as the school remains neutral and neither commands nor prohibits voluntary prayer or religious speech, the constitution is not violated.

Also, the head of Liberty Counsel notes, school officials may participate in private graduation ceremonies on their own time. He says just as student speakers offering graduation ceremony remarks or invocations are entitled to free speech and religious expression, adults invited to speak at commencement activities also retain their First Amendment rights.

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