The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

September 8, 2012

Director eyes public prayer legal options

By Felicia A. Petro Allied News Senior Reporter

GROVE CITY — A suggestion to “solemnize” Grove City school board meetings didn’t seem to have a prayer last week.

Director Scott Somora brought it up at the board’s work session as an alternative to having a moment of silence before meetings.

The moment of silence option has been discussed for months to replace the board’s decades-long practice of opening meetings with a prayer, and will be put to vote during the next meeting at 7 p.m. Monday.

Somora has opposed abandoning the practice, but said Wednesday he realized that prayer “probably can’t continue the way we have done it.”

A decision by the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals last year to stop Indian River school directors in Delaware from opening meetings with prayer provides strong case law for anyone wishing to sue any  board having the same practice.

Among its reasons, the court said that authority figures praying could be a strong influence on children towards religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  

Months ago, board solicitor Tim McNickle noted that  Wilmington Area school  directors had abandoned prayer at board meetings, and said Grove City should consider the same.

He later cited the Indian River case after the district received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation exhorting the board to stop having open prayer, stating that it violated the Constitution. That led to a majority vote to abandon the tradition.

Somora then asked Randall Wenger, with the Independence Law Center in Harrisburg, for help. Wenger and his colleagues, Scott Gaylord, professor at Elon University School of Law in Greensboro, N.C.; and Brett Harvey, chief legal intake counsel for the Alliance for Defending Freedom in Arizona, drafted a solemnization policy for Somora to take to the board.

Gaylord and Harvey discussed the policy with the board in a conference call during Wednesday’s meeting about the policy. Primarily, instead of a prayer or a moment of silence on the agenda, that slot would be reserved for a community member to solemnize the meeting by saying a prayer or any other expression – such as reciting a poem or article.

“It isn’t a prayer policy,” said Gaylord, which is what Indian River created.

The board would not control who would solemnize the meeting or what they would say. Ten minutes prior to a meeting, anyone interested in the solemnization would throw their name into a hat and one would be drawn, Somora said. If no one showed for the meeting, a board member would suggest observing a moment of silence.

Board members were concerned that the solemnization could be draw someone in the community who wanted to say something offensive.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the private individual rights of people to express themselves,” Harvey replied. However, if it was abused, the board could vote to drop the policy.

He noted that the Alliance for Defending Freedom would consider defending the board at no cost if the policy were challenged in court.

In answer to a question by board President Sue Herman after the conference call, McNickle’ said the solemnization policy hadn’t been tested in court.

“Do you want to be the guinea pig?” he said, noting there was no guarantee that the Alliance for Defending Freedom would defend the district in a court challenge.

However, he said, replacing the opening prayer with a moment of silence is the primary issue before the board, “and I would be glad to consider Scott’s policy as a separate matter.”

 

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