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Students’ Complete Guide to Religious Rights in Public School
Student Religious Speech at Athletic Competitions, Student Assemblies, and Other Extracurricular Events Even at a school athletic competition (such as a football game), student assembly, or other extracurricular activity students can voluntarily pray, and the First Amendment protects the students’ prayers to the same extent that the school allows other speech to occur. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that “nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public-school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the school day.[18] For example, if members of a football team are allowed to talk to one another about any subject prior to a game, then the school may not prohibit students from engaging in religious speech or prayer during this time. The school cannot treat conversations about religion differently than conversations about movies, friendships, or any other similar nonreligious speech.[19]
position in student council, a position on the athletic team, or is selected randomly), and the school does not usually control the speech of the student, then the student speaker can discuss religion, pray, or engage in any other speech during this time because his or her speech is constitutionally protected, private speech. It is important to note that “the First Amendment permits public school officials to review student speeches for vulgarity, lewdness, or sexually explicit language. Without more, however, such review does not make student speech attributable to the state.”[21]This means that a school official can review a student’s speech for vulgarity, lewdness, or sexually explicit language and the speech can still remain private, constitutionally protected expression.
Student Religious Speech at Graduation Ceremonies
Students can include religious content, including prayer, in their graduation speeches so long as the students were selected by religiously-neutral criteria (e.g., valedictorian and salutatorian are selected by grade point average, class officers are selected by a student body vote) and the control over the content of each address is left to the students, and not the school.
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines:
Student speakers at student assemblies and extracurricular activities such as sporting events may not be selected on a basis that either favors or disfavors religious speech. Where student speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious (or antireligious) content. By contrast, where school officials determine or substantially control the content of what is expressed, such speech is attributable to the school and may not include prayer or other specifically religious (or antireligious) content. To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech (whether religious or nonreligious) is the speaker's and not the school's.[20] For example, if a school allows a student speaker to deliver “opening remarks” before each athletic competition, and the student speaker is chosen by neutral criteria (such as a
According to the U.S. Department of Education’s guidelines:
School officials may not mandate or organize prayer at graduation or select speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech such as prayer. Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious (or antireligious) content. To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech (whether religious or nonreligious) is the speaker's and not the school’s.[22]
For example, if the school district allows the valedictorian, salutatorian, class president, and class vice president to each
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