THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 5, 1996 TAG: 9611050311
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 59 lines
The Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal by Mississippi officials seeking to allow student prayer in public schools, choosing once again to stand clear of the trench debate over prayer in the nation's classrooms.
The justices refused to revive a 1994 state law that would have allowed student-led prayer at all school events, a law that a lower court had found unconstitutional.
In their failed appeal, Mississippi officials had asserted that ``in a public school climate characterized by a recent dramatic increase in teenagers' drug use. . . loss of moral values, (and) lack of respect for authority. . . a court-sponsored message of hostility to student-initiated prayer and religious viewpoints is exactly the wrong message.''
Since the Supreme Court first banned school prayer in 1962, the debate over religion in schools has been a constant in America, as those favoring prayer recitations battle with an equally determined group who believe public prayer has no place in the schools. Through the years, the high court has at times seemed more willing to allow religious activities in public schools, but it has never in 30 years reversed its ban on prayer and Bible readings. In 1992, the court narrowly ruled unconstitutional a faculty-organized invocation and benediction at a junior high school graduation in Providence, R.I.
The statute in Monday's case, Moore vs. Ingrebretsen, arose from state lawmakers' indignation over the temporary suspension of a Jackson, Miss., school principal who let students begin each school day with a prayer over the intercom.
David Ingrebretsen, executive director of the state American Civil Liberties Union, his daughter, and a group of others sued the state over the law, which said ``invocations, benedictions or nonsectarian, nonproselytizing student-initiated voluntary prayer shall be permitted.''
A federal district judge suspended enforcement of the law except for voluntary, student-led prayers at graduations. Affirming that ruling, the court of appeals for the 5th Circuit said the law would lead to improper state involvement in school prayer because teachers would help decide where the prayers would take place and when. It also said that students would be improperly coerced into prayers because they would take place during regular school activities. Mississippi had specifically argued that those who had challenged the law lacked personal standing to sue since the law had yet to be applied.
Separately, the high court over the weekend issued an order that allows Arkansas to vote today on a term-limits initiative that would require Arkansas state and federal officials to support the cause of term limits. Specifically, the initiative would require Arkansas' congressional delegation ``to use all the powers of the congressional office to pass the congressional term limits amendment.'' By a 7-2 vote, the high court postponed the effects of an Oct. 21 Arkansas Supreme Court decision and allowed the initiative to remain on the general election ballot.
The Arkansas Supreme Court had ruled that so-called Amendment 9 unconstitutionally sought to give legislative powers directly to the people and violated the federal constitutional dictate that all amendments to the Constitution originate either in Congress or state legislatures.
KEYWORDS: SUPREME COURT PRAYER by CNB