LET THE GNASHING OF TEETH BEGIN

Shock and awe of a resurgence in school prayer (KELLY J. COGHLAN, April 30, 2003, Houston Chronicle)

The prayer wars have ended and students are the winners. In early February, the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice issued Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools (available at www.ed.gov), a seven-page set of rules that junior high and high schools must follow to receive federal funds.

The guidelines clarify that public schools are not religion-free zones, school officials are not prayer police and students of faith are not enemies of the state. Now students will be able to open their school activities with prayer. Out loud. And without fear of punishment by their schools.

That is hard to believe when just this time last year a New York school was in the news for stopping three kindergartners from joining hands and saying grace over their cupcakes, a Texas school was defending its policy of "prayers, blessings, invocations and references to a deity are prohibited," and numerous schools were advising class valedictorians to refrain from religious references. But the rules have changed. On this, our National Day of Prayer, we should give thanks.

The guidelines provide that with basic safeguards in place, student prayer over school microphones, on school property, at school-sponsored events is protected constitutional speech: "Where student speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious content. To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech is the speaker's and not the school's." The same rule applies to graduation speakers.

There are even provisions permitting students to actually pray meaningful prayers: "Public schools may not restrict or censor [students'] prayers on the ground that they might be deemed `too religious' to others. The Establishment Clause prohibits state officials from making judgments about what constitutes an appropriate prayer, and from favoring or disfavoring certain types of prayers -- be they `nonsectarian' and `nonproselytizing' or the opposite -- over others." [...]

The guidelines were issued pursuant to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. And lest anyone believe this a right-wing conspiracy, the bill was drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Education Committee and passed by a Democratically controlled Senate.

What conservatives failed to understand is that by giving Ted Kennedy the money the Democrats demanded, the Administration got to rewrite the rules governing public education, from school prayer to vouchers. Of course, Senator Kennedy didn't realize it either, which is how it got done. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 2, 2003 7:17 PM