When Graduation Ceremonies at Public Schools Are Stripped of Faith

Should public schools censor religious speech from baccalaureate and commencement graduation speeches? It depends who’s answering this question.

After this season’s graduation ceremonies, an organization that heavily advocates for the separation of church and state went after a graduation-standard baccalaureate service at Opp High School in Opp, Alabama.

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The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation asked the school to keep graduation ceremonies “secular.”

“It is our understanding that Opp High School held a baccalaureate service in its auditorium on May 21 and that Opp High Principal Aaron Hightower led the seniors in prayer during the service,” Sam Grover, an attorney with the Freedom From Religion Foundation, wrote in a letter to Michael Smithart, the school district superintendent.

Grover’s group believed the school organized and sponsored the event.

“We ask that you cease sponsorship and hosting of future baccalaureate services occurring in the District, that you ensure that no prayers are scheduled for future high school graduation ceremonies or any other school-sponsored events occurring in the District,” Grover wrote on June 5.

In a statement to The Blaze, the superintendent said the Freedom From Religion Foundation “apparently” alerted the media at the same time the group sent its letter to the district.

A typical baccalaureate ceremony does have a religious tone, given the nature of the event. Graduating classes at public schools may still have a baccalaureate service, but schools must not organize or mandate a religious event.

Another issue: Can organized prayer take place during a public school’s graduation ceremony?

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In Pennsylvania, one school district’s superintendent allegedly told a graduating senior to remove any faith-related messaging from her graduation ceremony speech.

“I was shocked that the school said my personal remarks broke the law and saddened that I could not draw upon my Christian identity to express my best wishes for my classmates on what should’ve been the happiest day of high school,” said Moriah Bridges, who just graduated from Beaver High School in Beaver, Pennsylvania, according to the law firm First Liberty Institute.

School officials told Bridges she could not make her prepared remarks — submitted to the officials for review ahead of the ceremony — on June 2, 2017.

The class president had asked Bridges to speak at the ceremony.

Related: Your Child Can Still Pray in Public School

“The selected students may still address their class and indicate the things that they wish/hope for their class, but they may not do it in the style of a prayer and most certainly may not recite a prayer that excludes other religions,” school officials said in an email to Bridges.

Attorneys with First Liberty says students still have religious rights at school.

“The last lesson this school district taught its students is that they should hide their religious beliefs from public view. That fails the test of the First Amendment,” Jeremy Dys, deputy general counsel for First Liberty, stated in a press release from the organization.

As seen in these two instances from Alabama and Pennsylvania, public school students wishing to encourage others with their faith — or to take part in optional faith-based events — are caught in a vise.