The Freedom From Religion Foundation has informed Bolivar R-1 School District in Bolivar, Mo., that prayer at its staff meetings is inappropriate and unconstitutional.
A concerned employee informed the national state/church watchdog that official prayer started the district’s Aug. 13 all-staff assembly. A local pastor, Matt Bunn of Heights Church, recited the school-sponsored prayer over a loudspeaker. Several staff members were uncomfortable, according to FFRF’s complainant, but were too afraid to walk out or speak out against the prayer.
“School-sponsored prayer coerces attendees into worship,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi has written to the district. “Over a captive audience, official prayer is even more inappropriate.”
Faculty and staff have the First Amendment right to be free from religious indoctrination, including when participating in school-sponsored events, FFRF asserts. It is a basic constitutional principle that public schools may not show favoritism toward or coerce belief or participation in religion. Coercing staff members to participate in prayer at an all-staff, or any school-sponsored event, is unconstitutional. Further, giving only Christian teachers the benefit of prayer is unlawful preference for Christianity.
Additionally, Missouri’s Establishment Clause prohibits this coercion and preferential treatment. Missouri’s constitutional provisions “‘declaring that there shall be a separation of church and state are not only more explicit but more restrictive’ than the First Amendment,” as the courts have pointed out.
Plus, the school district serves and employs a diverse population with diverse religious beliefs, including Jews, Muslims, atheists and agnostics. A full 37 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent that is nonreligious. Additionally, at least a third of Generation Z members (those born after 1996) have no religion, with a recent survey revealing that almost half of Gen Z qualifies as religiously unaffiliated “nones.”
FFRF asserts that the district must remain neutral with regard to religion in order to respect and protect the First Amendment rights of all staff. Bolivar R-1 has fallen short on this front, and that’s why the district must be made aware that including religious worship in its events is unconstitutional.
“The district violates the Constitution when it invites a minister to staff meetings to force them to pray,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “School staff have the right to be free from their employers foisting their religion upon them.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country, including more than 400 in Missouri. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
