Alabama school district agrees to stop broadcasting prayers over PA system before football games

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The Jefferson County School District in Alabama has agreed to stop broadcasting a Christian prayer over the PA system at the start of school-sponsored football games and events after a parent complained to a national nonprofit that works to promote the separation of church and state.

The parent wrote to the Freedom From Religion Foundation in September to say that their child felt uncomfortable when schools in the district played a Christian prayer over the loudspeaker because he didn’t know whether to stand with the other students and pretend to be Christian or remain seated and risk scrutiny from his peers, Chris Line, a staff attorney with the foundation, told McClatchy News.

“It really put him in a tough spot,” he said. “Not a situation that a public school should be putting one of their students in.”

The foundation sent a letter to the school district in September and received a response in March saying that the superintendent had met with principals and agreed to no longer play prayers at school-sponsored events, Line said.

In a statement, Jefferson County School District Superintendent Walter Gonsoulin, said that the issue was ”administratively resolved at the school level.”

“That resolution was based on the (Jefferson County School) Board’s legal obligations that have been established by binding court precedent,” the statement reads.

But, Gonsoulin said, the “adherence” to the Court’s rulings should “not be understood as a rejection of students’ religious rights and liberties in the school setting.”

“The Jefferson County Board of Education remains firmly committed to respecting and protecting those rights and liberties in every way permitted by the Constitution and laws of the United States,” Gonsoulin said.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayers at high school football games are unconstitutional, reaffirming its earlier decisions against prayer sponsored by public schools.

AP file

FILE - In this March 20, 2019, file photo, the west facade of the Supreme Court Building bears the motto "Equal Justice Under Law," in Washington. 

In the majority opinion in the case — Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe — then Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, “Even if we regard every high school student’s decision to attend a home football game as purely voluntary, we are nevertheless persuaded that the delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship.”

The dissenting justices felt that the decision was hostile towards “all things religious in public life” and adopted too strict a view of the separation of church and state, according to the dissenting opinion written by then Justice William Rehnquist.

The court first ruled in 1962 that school-sponsored prayer violated the First Amendment.

“Everyone should be allowed to participate fully and be full members of their school and just go enjoy a football game on Friday night without having to worry about religious implications,” Line said.