Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 6, 1993 TAG: 9306060118
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But one thing will be different.
This year there will be no invocation - no prayer for God's blessing on the proceedings.
There will still be a candlelight recessional - a half-century-old tradition. There will be sacred as well as secular music - selected by the senior class.
For the second year, there is no class chaplain - a tradition that had run its course, Miller said, and faded out on its own last year.
What the school has called a baccalaureate service is really more of a senior awards program, not a religious service, Miller said, and that will continue as usual.
The changes at Auburn High are representative of what will happen at scores of Virginia high schools in the next couple of weeks.
Prayers are out at most graduations as school districts attempt to comply with last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prayers at a Rhode Island middle-school graduation were illegal.
Not everybody is happy about the new rules, though, and in at least a few Virginia counties students apparently will deliver perfectly legal prayers as part of graduation speeches.
The senior class president at Spotswood High School in Rockingham County threatened to sue county officials last month when they refused to endorse his right to say a prayer as part of his graduation address.
The American Center for Law and Justice - founded by Virginia Beach television evangelist Pat Robertson - intervened on the student's behalf.
Mark Troobnick, the ACLJ attorney, said Friday that the Rockingham County School Board has decided it cannot censor the student's speech.
Rockingham officials said the whole affair was a misunderstanding and told the Harrisonburg News-Record that the School Board "may not sponsor, promote, endorse, or sanction prayer as part of the official graduation ceremony." That left open the possibility for an individual student to pray if he takes "individual responsibility for his actions and their consequences."
That's fine with the American Civil Liberties Union, executive director Kent Willis said last week.
As long as the student is free to speak on whatever topic he or she chooses with no censorship by school officials, Willis said, that student has every right to say a prayer.
It is when school divisions begin setting rules for speech or setting aside time for prayers that the wall separating church and state may be illegally breached, he said.
In Henrico County, Willis said, school officials have said that they will allow only student-initiated prayers, but have set aside time for invocations and benedictions, which will be included on printed graduation programs.
The ACLU has formally protested that arrangement, saying that amounts to sponsorship and endorsement of the prayers.
Troobnick said his organization does not want schools to carve out a time for student prayer, but does assert that if a student is selected to speak, his or her speech cannot be censored on the basis of its content.
The Washington-based lawyer said the ACLJ has intervened successfully in "hundreds of cases . . . in virtually every state" this spring in which students want to deliver prayers as part of their graduation speeches.
Reaction to the graduation prayer issue has ranged from student walkouts to lawsuits across the state.
The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are suing Loudoun County officials for allowing students to vote on having prayers at graduations.
That lawsuit was filed in Alexandria on Friday, seeking an injunction against the prayers on behalf of one student and two teachers who objected to them.
Last month, students at some high schools in Lee, Scott and Wise counties walked out of classes to protest the exclusion of prayers at graduation.
Though some students in the widely publicized protests admitted they just took advantage of the situation to get out of classes, school administrators said they believed many were sincere.
In Danville, a George Washington High School student selected to give the welcoming address was told by school officials Thursday night that he cannot offer a prayer.
About 250 people came to support the student. However, board chairman Charles Majors said school attorneys, and attorneys with other school organizations, say that prayer during the June 19 graduation ceremony would violate the law.
Majors said he appreciated Marshburn's desire to pray, but said the board must "uphold the law of the land."
by CNB