After a complaint by FFRF, Louisville High School in Ohio will no longer include invocations at its annual marching band competition. The 2015 event reportedly began with a minister leading attendees from seven different Ohio public schools in prayer.
Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert wrote to the Louisville School District on Oct. 21. “Federal courts consistently strike down school-sponsored prayer in public schools because it constitutes a government endorsement of religion, which violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and interferes with the personal conscience of students,” Markert wrote.
An attorney for the school district informed FFRF on Nov. 24 that the superintendent had reminded “the appropriate parties” of the law on school invocations.
