Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash
A national state/church watchdog has successfully defended the constitutional rights of students by stopping prayer at an Illinois high school’s graduation ceremony.
A concerned community member informed the Freedom From Religion Foundation some months ago that the May 19 graduation ceremony at Cowden-Herrick High School in the Cowden-Herrick Community Unit 3A School District featured an invocation delivered by a youth minister at First Church Church of Cowden. The event also included an official sermon delivered by a pastor from the same church, who reportedly ranted about transgender people and human sexuality. Several attendees got up and walked out upon hearing the pastor’s homophobia and transphobia. Both the pastor and the youth minister were planned speakers for the event, as the program title included their church titles, “Invocation” and “Scripture/Sermon.” The event was also described as a “Baccalaureate.”
FFRF took action to fight for the rights of all students in the district.
“Homophobic and transphobic graduation speeches create a hostile environment on the basis of sex,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi wrote to the district. “They cast some students as normal while making other students seem abnormal. That is textbook sex discrimination.
Public school students have a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in their public schools, FFRF emphasized. Even the state Constitution stands as an independent reason for not planning prayer at official school events. Irrespective of any First Amendment analysis, Illinois law prohibits preplanned graduation prayer. Attendees and seniors were subjected to a local pastor’s religious harangue in order to receive their diplomas. Not only was that inappropriate, it is also illegal in multiple ways. Illinois schools may neither schedule prayer as part of a secular graduation ceremony nor may they deprive individuals full enjoyment or access to graduation ceremonies based on sexual orientation or transgender status.
After FFRF sent its letter, the district agreed to comply with the Constitution.
“Moving forward, the district will not schedule preplanned prayer, which will be reflected in future graduation programs,” Superintendent Seth Schuler recently responded in an email. “In addition, the district plans to seek graduation speakers that will deliver messages that are congratulatory, motivational and uplifting in nature.”
FFRF is gratified that the school district has been willing to listen to reason over dogma.
“Public school graduations are supposed to be a celebration of the completion of 13 years of secular education, not a ceremony to give credit for students’ hard work to a deity,” states FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We’re pleased to receive these reassurances that future graduation ceremonies will be free of such divisiveness.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 40,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,200 members and a chapter in Illinois. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
