School Permits 'Do-Over' After Previously Prohibiting Student Prayer Rally
by Jim Brown
October 31, 2005
(AgapePress) - Christian students in New Jersey have chalked up a big win. After initially being barred from holding a "See You at the Pole" (SYATP) prayer rally, a group of middle school has been permitted to hold a "do-over" prayer event.
Last month, administrators at Brackman Middle School in Barnegat, New Jersey, told three students they were "mixing church and state" by praying before school in front of the campus flagpole. The students were then ordered to stop praying and move around the corner so other students arriving at school on buses would not see them praying.
However, after attorney Jeremy Tedesco with the Alliance Defense Fund stepped in and threatened to file a federal lawsuit against the school, Brackman school officials changed their position, allowing the students' to go ahead with their "do over" prayer gathering. He notes that the student-led prayer assembly ended up being a huge success, garnering more attention and participation than it would have had the students been allowed to proceed with their original plans.
"The praise in all this," Tedesco says, "is that somewhere around 20 students showed up at the make-up event. It was heavily advertised at the school. Community members, parents, apparently the mayor of the town, and a local radio station -- all came in support of the kids' right to pray. So it was really a great outcome."
The pro-family attorney feels the school officials should be applauded for doing the right thing. "ADF is happy to have been a part of helping the school to understand what the Constitution really says about the First Amendment rights of its students," he says. Apparently, he notes, Brackman officials were initially unaware that the student prayer rally was constitutional.
Tedesco sought to clarify the issue in a letter to the principal following the school's initial prohibition. In that communication, he pointed out that an administration's censorship of student prayer as part of an SYATP event is "blatantly unconstitutional under firmly established law," and clearly violates the students' rights.
"We're getting to the point where the market is saturated on this point," Tedesco contends, "but even still, there are some administrators that don't know about 'See You at the Pole.'" Of course, he acknowledges, many U.S. public schools do not have SYATP events as yet. "In some schools it doesn't happen," he explains. "It usually takes a few kids to initiate it and spearhead the effort."
But even if SYATP is not necessarily a "household word" in every schoolhouse, the ADF spokesman notes that Brackman Middle School "certainly is aware of it now." After seeing some 50 students and community members show up to participate in the students' make-up prayer rally, he expects this school district is very clear about what See You at the Pole means and what the Constitution of the United States says about it.
"And hopefully a lot of other school districts are, as a result of our intervention in this and the press it's received," Tedesco adds. And, hopefully, he says, if those other districts across the state have indeed paid attention, "now 'See You at the Pole will be safer in New Jersey."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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