Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 17, 1994 TAG: 9404170078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Jim Clifton says he was just trying to give some guidance to the "20 percent" of students in the Bristol school system who were not learning any moral values at home.
That was why he entered a resolution last month approved by all but one of his fellow school board members to consider requiring high school students to study the King James Version of the Bible.
"We hoped that by just exposing them to it as literature, poetry and history, they would derive something out of that. It was not to focus on religion. We just hoped that from the exposure they would derive some family or personal values," Clifton said last week.
"The ACLU jumped on that like crazy."
Indeed, the Virginia office of the American Civil Liberties Union as well as attorneys for the state school board association advised the Bristol board that its plan would not pass constitutional muster. The board abandoned its study.
That doesn't mean the issue is dead, though. Secular and religious civil-liberties groups around the country say the battle over religion in public schools is liable to be hot for several years.
The Bristol case is merely a harbinger of the disagreements - likely to intensify as graduations approach - that will have to be settled in board rooms and courtrooms, they say.
The question of whether students should be able to lead their classmates in prayer will be particularly sticky in light of new state legislation that critics say conflicts with court rulings on the subject.
In Bristol, Clifton said he probably will propose that high school students complete 75 hours of "mandatory volunteer" service outside school in order to graduate.
"I hope if they help at the Boys Club one Saturday in high school," that those students who aren't getting values instruction elsewhere "may take pride in being helpful to somebody," he said.
Though "mandatory volunteer" may be an oxymoron, that proposal poses no church-state conflicts, said Rob Boston, spokesman for the Maryland-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
In Bristol, "the motivation [to teach values] may have been good, but the solution was inappropriate. You cannot turn the public schools into Sunday schools," Boston said.
Virginia ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis said his organization is often unfairly tarred as being opposed to the teaching of values when it comes out in opposition to plans such as Bristol's.
"There's nothing wrong with teaching values in school. . . . School teaches the place of authority, it teaches you to do things on time. They are lessons in life," Willis said.
"Schools have rules about cheating, lying, treating others with respect. It is absolutely appropriate to have and enforce such rules. The problem comes when those values are taught through religious doctrine."
Boston contends that "in some ways, fundamentalist Christians put public schools in an impossible situation."
On one hand, "the public schools are accused by the religious right of being godless, of not teaching right from wrong. . . . but they say, `How dare you teach my children values outside my system of religion?' "
"The best thing schools can do is give a general understanding of a wide variety of values of all religious systems," Boston said. "No religious system I know of teaches that it is OK to come up behind someone, hit him on the head and take his wallet."
Even if there is some agreement among religious liberties groups on the worth of values education and the inappropriateness of using the Bible as a morals text, there is still a gulf on the issue of prayer in schools.
The issue has become muddled in a series of apparently contradictory federal court decisions and a plethora of new state laws.
Last year, the Virginia ACLU won a federal court decision that prevented Loudon County from allowing student-led prayers at graduation. In Texas, though, the federal courts approved "student- initiated, student-led, non-sectarian, non-proselytizing" prayers.
Jay Sekulow believes the prayer issue is just that simple. "If a prayer is student-initiated and student-led," it's OK, he said, although he has problems with a court saying prayers must be "non-sectarian and non-proselytizing."
Sekulow is chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which was founded four years ago by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson to counter what he saw as the liberalism of the ACLU.
While Sekulow says the rules for legal prayer are pretty clear, other legal watchdogs, including the conservative Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, disagree.
"It's not always black and white," said John Whitehead, founder and president of the Rutherford Institute.
Though he believes student-initiated spontaneous prayer is usually OK, a student vote on whether to have prayer may not always be valid.
If 51 percent of the students vote for a Christian prayer at graduation and the school is 49 percent Jewish, Whitehead said, that is probably not going to be allowed by a court.
Most legal groups dealing with the issue agree that the test of constitutionality in school prayer rests on the actual or seeming endorsement of the prayer by school officials, who are acting as representatives of the state.
Whitehead contends the graduation prayer issue should be decided on the issue of free speech.
He recommends that schools take a "total liberal approach" to graduations. "Let students make up the program. That way, the needs of the community will be met, and there can be no debate over whether school officials led or designed the prayer."
The ACLU's Willis disagrees. "What matters is that the prayer comes from a place of authority. It doesn't matter if it's by a student."
There is nothing wrong with a student "saying a silent prayer in a classroom before a test or saying grace in the lunchroom," Willis said. "In fact, there is nothing to prevent praying out loud in places where students' speech is not restricted in some way - in a hall between classes, for instance. In that context, prayer is free exercise of religion. . . . We would defend a student's right to say prayers then."
When prayer is part of an official school function, however, it gives the appearance of having been endorsed by the state, Willis said. That is why a federal court in Alexandria disallowed the Loudon County prayers last year, he said.
This spring, Virginia educators and students will face a confusing twist to that issue because of a new state law that says public schools must allow "student-initiated prayer" if done in accordance with "constitutional principles of freedom of religion and separation of church and state."
That appears to contradict what the federal court ruled last year, Willis said.
Though not unconstitutional on its face, Willis fears that the law's application may be a problem. He said the ACLU stands ready to sue to prevent graduation prayers again this year.
Civil liberties organizations agree that the issue can't be settled through legislation and that, ultimately, it will have to be decided in the courts.
"We desperately need Supreme Court guidance," said Americans United's Boston.
"For a few years, I expect a lot of confusion. Lower court decisions will help some, but what we may find is different rules for different parts of the country," based on federal circuit court decisions that apply only in the geographic regions they serve.
For now, school districts can count on what Boston calls "dueling memos" - a barrage of letters, threats and conflicting unsolicited advice.
"Both sides have enormous interests in this issue and significant resources," Willis said. "It's not going to go away."
by CNB