Photo by Paolo Aldrighetti on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling on the East Prairie R-II Schools system in Missouri to halt a repeated unconstitutional practice of athletic games being opened with a Christian invocation.
A concerned parent has informed the state/church watchdog that East Prairie routinely opens every high school and junior high school athletic game with a school-sponsored prayer. In a video provided to FFRF from a recent junior high football game, the school’s official announcer asks everyone in attendance to stand for the “invocation” before turning the microphone over to a local preacher, who leads the crowd in an explicitly Christian prayer invoking God and Jesus Christ. FFRF was told that this is a regular occurrence, and that school-sponsored prayers opened games on Sept. 3, Sept. 4 and Sept. 10.
The parent expressed concern to FFRF over the legality of the school-sponsored prayers, given that the pregame prayers were “school initiated” and that the school “compelled attendees to submit to the prayer.”
FFRF is asking the district to investigate the matter and ensure that East Prairie High School and all other district schools cease incorporating school-sponsored prayer at athletics events.
“Public school students have a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in their public schools, including when attending school-sponsored events,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence has written to the district superintendent.
FFRF points out in the letter that school officials may not invite a clergy member, teacher, faculty member, student or anyone else to give any type of prayer, invocation, benediction or sermon at public school-sponsored events. It is irrelevant whether student attendance at games is considered “voluntary” or “optional.” By having school-sponsored prayer at official school events, the district needlessly alienates non-Christian students, including atheists, agnostics and members of minority faiths. As much as 38 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent that is nonreligious. More than half of Generation Z (those born after 1996) is non-Christian, including 43 percent that identifies as nonreligious.
FFRF reiterates that the district must focus on protecting students’ rights to be free from religious indoctrination attempts at any school-sponsored event — and the reported religious practice must come to an end.
“There’s a fundamental difference between protecting a student’s right to pray and having the public school itself organize the prayer,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “When the official announcer tells everyone to stand and then hands the microphone to a preacher to invoke Jesus Christ, students understandably receive the message that Christianity has their school’s official endorsement. Every student and family should be able to cheer on their team without first being subjected to school-sponsored religious exercise.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 41,000 members nationwide, including hundreds of members in Missouri. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
