GROUP WANTS SENIORS TO SEEK PRAYER AT GRADUATIONS

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

DATE: MONDAY, April 5, 1993                   TAG: 9304050060
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Medium
GROUP WANTS SENIORS TO SEEK PRAYER AT GRADUATIONS
A group founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson is appealing to high school seniors around the country to exercise what it contends is their right to pray at graduation ceremonies.
The campaign by Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice has drawn a threat by an American Civil Liberties Union chapter in at least one state to sue school systems and officials who authorize graduation prayers.
"We will win - the Supreme Court has already decided the issue," said a letter sent by the Indiana ACLU to school officials in that state.
The Indiana group's letter sent last month came in response to a memo sent by Robertson's ACLJ in February to school boards throughout the country.
The ACLJ memo outlined recent court rulings on school prayer and contended that students "have the right to include an invocation and benediction in their graduation exercises."
That right, according to the ACLJ, is based on court protection of student free-speech rights, including the right to religious speech.
"School officials may not single out religious speech for negative treatment, so long as it is truly student-initiated and student-led," said the memo written by Jay Sekulow, the ACLJ's chief counsel.
But the Indiana ACLU letter cited a Supreme Court ruling last year prohibiting school-sponsored prayer and said the decision applies to any speaker, students included, at school-sponsored events like graduations.
"Despite what Pat Robertson says, there is no exception for a student speaker even if a majority of students vote to include prayer," said the letter signed by Sheila S. Kennedy, executive director of the Indiana group, and J. Alexander Tanford, its vice president for education.
Kennedy said the issue isn't whether students can pray. "What they don't have the right to do is make somebody else pray," she said.
Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia ACLU, said he would send out a letter, similar to the Indiana group's letter, to state school superintendents and high school principals this week. "We want to make sure that everyone in charge of graduations understands what they can and can't do," he said.
Both sides, meantime, agreed that prayer would be appropriate at a privately sponsored baccalaureate service that could be held either immediately before or after a graduation ceremony.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB