Students at one Washington State public school suspended for praying

Students at one Washington State public school suspended for praying

Mathew D. Staver, founder of the pro-family legal group Liberty Counsel, says a lawsuit is possible against officials at a Washington State high school that suspended 12 Russian immigrant students because they gathered to pray before school.

Several weeks ago, administrators at Heritage High School in Vancouver, Washington, denied a request from Christian students to start a prayer club. The students, who were not allowed to meet for prayer in a private room, instead gathered before school in the cafeteria to pray; however, they were reported by a student who claims to be a Satanist.

The school's vice principal then told the Christian students they could not pray in the cafeteria and would have to go outside. The Christian students refused and were suspended, some for three days and others for ten days. Staver says the students' constitutional rights were violated.

"It's absolutely outrageous that the school allowed one Satanist student to exercise a heckler's veto over the other students' speech," the Liberty Counsel spokesman observes. "The situation underscores the ignorance of the school officials, and what Liberty Counsel has now done is issued a demand letter, demanding immediate action by the school to allow these students to be reinstated."

Staver notes that most of the students suspended were Russian immigrants who "came to America assuming that America was the land of the free and the home of the brave -- assuming that they would have religious liberty." But instead they were greeted "with religious persecution and discrimination; and so this situation needs to be remedied immediately," he asserts.

Liberty Counsel is providing legal assistance to the students who were suspended. Staver says a lawsuit will be filed this week if school officials do not reverse their decision.