Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991                   TAG: 9103190023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

COURT TO WEIGH ISSUE OF SCHOOL CEREMONY PRAYER

The justices agreed to review rulings that bar guest speakers from delivering invocations and benedictions at high school and junior high school commencement ceremonies in Providence, R.I.

A decision is expected sometime in 1992.

Since 1962, the high court has banned organized prayer sessions from public schools, but school officials in Providence say graduation ceremony prayers are different.

Administration lawyers, siding with the school officials, are asking the court to scrap the way it has determined for the last 20 years whether a governmental practice creates an unconstitutional "establishment of religion."

The justices since 1971 have employed a three-part test in judging such disputes. Under the test, a law or governmental practice is struck down if it has a religious purpose, advances or promotes religion, or fosters excessive entanglement with religion.

In the Providence case, Justice Department lawyers said the court should "jettison the framework erected [in 1971] in circumstances where, as here, the practice under assault is non-coercive, ceremonial acknowledgement of the heritage of a deeply religious people."

The government lawyers added:

"Whatever special concerns about subtle coercion may be present in the classroom setting - where inculcation is the name of the game - they do not carry over into the commencement setting, which is more properly understood as a civic ceremony than part of the education mission."

J. Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee said his organization was concerned by Monday's action. He said the 1971 test "has not been a perfect one but has captured the idea that government should be neutral with respect to religion. We think that . . . promotes the greatest degree of religious liberty."

The prayers in Providence were challenged two years ago by Daniel Weisman when his daughter, Deborah, was a student at Nathan Bishop Junior High School.

Weisman, a Rhode Island College professor who practices Judaism, objected when a rabbi was scheduled to give an invocation and benediction at his daughter's promotion ceremony.

Weisman's lawyers said he is "opposed to and offended by inclusion of prayer in public school promotional and graduation ceremonies." A federal judge and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Weisman.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the high court's review of the Providence case "opens up the distinct possibility that the principle of separation of church and state may get a drubbing."