Federal court issues preliminary injunction barring Indiana district from allowing student-led prayer at high school graduation ceremony

Workman v. Greenwood Cmty. Sch. Corp., __F.Supp.2d____ (S.D. Ind. Apr. 30, 2010), is an interesting case. The court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining school district officials from allowing any prearranged, predetermined student-led prayer at the high school’s commencement exercises.

In regard to the issue of prayer in public schools, the court stated that the U.S. Supreme Court “has blazed a clearer trail” than in other areas of First Amendment jurisprudence. Citing to Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), the court held that clergy-led graduation prayers, when marked with the imprimatur of a public school, violate the First Amendment. The court also examined Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000).

The court synthesized Lee and Santa Fe to arrive at the following standard to be applied in the case before it: “school-sanctioned graduation prayer in the secondary school context is unconstitutional when no public forum is offered, whether the ultimate decision to permit a prayer is made by the school itself or by a vote of the student body in an election process devised by the school.”

This decision is full of cites and worth a read for those interested.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein