The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging four school districts in the South and the Midwest to stop promoting overtly religious baccalaureate ceremonies.
FFRF has received reports from community members in Tennessee, Texas, Kentucky and Indiana that various school districts publicized baccalaureate services for graduating seniors. These districts include Cocke County School District in Newport, Tenn., which hosted a baccalaureate service at Northport Baptist Church on Sunday, May 5, hosted by a district elementary teacher after its promotion on the district’s Facebook page. The Community Independent School District in Nevada, Texas, hosted a service on Sunday, May 19, which featured an opening prayer, worship, sermons and a closing prayer delivered by local church clergy. Additionally, the Williamsburg Independent School District in Williamsburg, Ky., promoted a 2024 baccalaureate service and hosted a general graduation ceremony on May 19 that began with an official prayer — a practice that happened in 2020, 2021 and 2022 graduation ceremonies as well. And in the John Glenn School Corporation in Walkerton, Ind., two district teachers officially hosted on Sunday, April 21, a “nondenominational service for celebrating the achievements of our graduating seniors,” which included scripture reading.
FFRF is asking all four districts not to promote overtly religious events such as these in the future in order to respect the constitutional principle of state/church separation.
“Public schools may not host — and then promote — religious ceremonies,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi has written to each of these districts. “That includes baccalaureate services.”
It is well-settled law that public schools may not show favoritism toward nor coerce belief or participation in religion, FFRF emphasizes. Baccalaureate programs are religious services with prayer and worship. Schools may not plan, design or host baccalaureate programs. By hosting and promoting a baccalaureate ceremony, districts are demonstrating clear favoritism towards religion over nonreligion — and Christianity over all other faiths. That favoritism enlarges when district employees organize and host the service, as is the case in the John Glenn School Corporation and the Cocke County School District.
When districts fail to take any steps to disassociate themselves from these ceremonies, and instead actively promote them on social media, advertise them on websites, and publish photos of the event, for all intents and purposes the baccalaureate becomes a district event, FFRF points out. “Voluntariness” is no defense for the districts either, as promotion and preference cannot be defended with the attendees’ voluntary attendance. Districts have a constitutional duty to remain neutral toward religion. By hosting and promoting these services, the district abdicates this duty — needlessly alienating the almost half of Generation Z that is religiously unaffiliated.
“These schools held religious ceremonies for their students, promoted them, and celebrated their own worship services. That’s unconstitutional,” adds Joshi. “One glance at a calendar, and it’s easy to see that these services were held on Sundays. These were Christian ceremonies. These districts should be more cognizant of that going forward.”
FFRF is urging these four districts to respect their constitutional duty to remain secular and not to promote and host religious baccalaureate ceremonies in the future.
“School districts exist to educate, not indoctrinate into religion,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “These four districts used their official communication channels to promote Christianity above nonreligion and all other religions. Students deserve to celebrate their achievements after 18 years of education, not to be forced to worship.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members across the country. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
