The Freedom From Religion Foundation has made certain that the Pearl Public School District will no longer feature prayers at its graduation ceremonies.
A concerned community member and alumni informed FFRF that prayer started the Pearl High School’s 2024 graduation ceremony. This practice had been in place since 2019. Each prayer followed the same structure: It happened after the graduating class sat and before the pledge of allegiance. A student delivered a prayer and then left the stage. FFRF’s complainant noted that prayer often commenced official district events, such as sporting events and award ceremonies. The prayers were overtly Christian, all starting with “Dear God” and concluding with “amen.”
“School-sponsored prayer has the effect of government coercing all attendees to participate in religious worship,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi wrote to the district. “That coercion is at the heart of the Establishment Clause and thus makes official school prayer unconstitutional.”
FFRF emphasized that public school students have a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in their public schools, including when attending school-sponsored events. School officials may neither invite a student, teacher, faculty member or clergy member to give any type of prayer, invocation, benediction or sermon at public school-sponsored events, nor may they give a prayer themselves. Attendee acceptance or indifference to prayer is immaterial; courts continually reaffirm that the protection of minority rights is the Constitution’s touchstone. By conducting prayer at a graduation and at other official school events, the school district abridged that duty and needlessly excluded and marginalized students who are a part of the 49 percent of Generation Z that is religiously unaffiliated.
After FFRF wrote to the district, the district’s attorney reviewed the argument and concurred.
“The Board of Trustees of the Pearl Public School District has been advised of the concerns expressed in your letter dated September 11, 2024,” Attorney Arthur F. Jernigan Jr. responded. “The district agrees that the alleged school-sponsored prayer at graduation will be eliminated.”
FFRF is pleased when a district learns from its mistakes.
“School districts exist to educate, not indoctrinate into religion,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Young, impressionable students — who are a captive audience — should never be expected or prodded to engage in religious rituals in our secular public schools.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 40,000 members across the country, including members in Mississippi. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
