Abernathy V. Martin High School Speech Analysis

Since the Declaration of Independence was drafted founding itself on individual privileges and choice, happiness and democracy, a multitude of concerns have kindled the rights disputes that we see making law an active and continually growing and interesting area of interest today. Issues arose included women suffrage, civil equality, slavery, the ability to hold a religious forum, along with many others. And, though the context and times have significantly changed with these concerns there still remains a constant struggle between state, religion, and schools. Prayer in public schools is still a topic of conversation. The giving of religious gifts to administrators and the funding of schools through tax-payer monies are

High school student Matthew Fraser gave a speech to his high school classmates that was considered to lude and against school code, this speech was given on behalf of a friend to help his friend win an election held by the school. This assembly took place during school hours, on school grounds. Fraser had made many obscene gestures, and used foul language several times during his speech, the speech made references to sexual acts, and had many curse words in his speach. Fraser did have a discussion with instructors over the content of his speech that he intended to give, they told him it was not recommended and advised him he should not use the speech he had prepared,

A student at Westside High School requested to form a Christian Club that would meet after school. The club would be granted the same privileges as the other student groups at the school, but they did not have a faculty sponsor. Her request was denied by the principal stating that the club would violate the Establishment Clause and the School Board policy requiring a faculty member to sponsor the club. Mergens took her concerns to the School Board. The School Board upheld the principal’s decision. Mergens filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education of Westside Community Schools, for denying the request for a Christian

The Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe stated that student-led/ student-initiated prayer at high school football games violated the establishment clause of the first amendment. The Baptist religion was promoted in the Santa Fe Independent School District in Texas, which is located between Galveston and Houston. A teacher handed out flyers for a “revival meeting” which involved reading the bible and other Catholic things. They offered prayer up to God at graduations, assemblies, and football games. One mormon student and mother filed suit against the school district. Also, one catholic student and mother filed suit against the school district. Their lawsuit involved that the Establishment Clause was violated many times. They did not

In summarizing the salient points of the Supreme Court case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, it had to do with the respondent’s father who sued candidates, including a school region, affirming that the school locale's approach requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at his little girl's school damaged the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the father had standing and decided for the father. Certiorari was conceded to audit the standing and First Amendment issues.

The case of Wallace v. Jaffree calls into question the constitutionality of an Alabama statute that authorized teachers to lead a one-minute period of silence for “meditation or voluntary” prayer in all public schools. Ishmael Jaffree, the parent of three students in the Mobile County Public School system filed a complaint that two of his three children had been “subjected to various acts of religious indoctrination,” as a result of Alabama statute 16-1-20.1 and asked for an injunction prohibiting Mobile County schools from “maintaining or allowing the maintenance of regular religious prayer services.” The purpose of Jaffree’s complaint was to prohibit the devotional services occurring in his children’s school and the consequent mockery of his children that occurred when they refused to recite the prayers to “Almighty God” (Stevens, 40). This type of law in Alabama public schools was not the first of its kind. Prior to statute 6-11-20.1, Alabama passed law 16-1-20 authorizing one minute of silence in public schools for meditation. After the authorization of statute 16-1-20.1 came 16-1-20.2, which allowed teachers to lead “willing students” in a prayer (Stevens, 40).

In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Santa Fe Independent School District V. Doe (SFISD V. Doe) case, Chief Justice Rehnquist commented, “It [the ruling] bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life” (“United”). Separating religion and state has always been a matter of concern for the United States, as shown by the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of our constitution. Although there have been many cases revolving around the relationship between the church and the state, SFISD V. Doe is among the most notable. By examining the background, reflecting on the decision, and analyzing the impact of the SFISD V. Doe case,

Supreme Court, my office cannot shrink from a case or stand mute because the case is controversial. It’s important for Indiana to weigh in on the upcoming Supreme Court case of Galloway v. the Town of Greece, New York, because the Indiana House of Representatives was subjected to a similar lawsuit in recent years. Municipal and state officials face uncertainty when deciding whether to start legislative meetings with prayer, and the Supreme Court could bring an end to that confusion.

Town of Greece, New York v. Susan Galloway was a Supreme Court case that posed the question of whether or not the town of Greece should be allowed to open their board meetings with voluntary prayer that was almost always Christian prayer. The defendant in this case was the town of Greece, which is located in the state of New York and has a population of 94,000 people (opinion p.1). In 1999, under new leadership, the town of Greece made the transition from opening each town board meeting with a moment of silence to opening with a prayer (opinion p.1). The opinion states that the prayer was supposed to, “place town members in a solemn and deliberative state of mind, invoke divine guidance in town affairs, and follow a tradition practiced by Congress and dozens of other state legislatures (opinion p.2).” The prayer was given each month by an unpaid volunteer clergyman. After this person gave the prayer they were then named the “chaplain for the month” (opinion p.2). Anyone could volunteer to be a chaplain no matter what religion they practiced or even if they practiced no religion at all (opinion p.2). However, almost every single chaplain was Christian (opinion p.2). One very important fact about the case is that the town of Greece did not provide any guidelines or suggestions about what the prayers should include. In fact, they didn’t even read the prayers beforehand because they believed that would be impeding the chaplains’ first amendment right (opinion p.2). This meant

S. Court granted review of the case. Milford Central School’s arguments are that Good News Club is in violation of the Establishment Clause because the organizations purpose is religion and the students, especially the elementary students, would not be able to distinguish the religion instruction from the school instruction. In addition, the school has a “limited public forum” and cannot accept every application or open its doors every time an organization wants it to ("Find Law", 2015). The school related their argument to previous cases, such as, Engel v. Vitale Lee v. Weisman Sante Fe (school prayer), Peck v. Upsher County Board (no bibles in elementary schools), and Widmar v. Vincent (younger students are impressionable). Good News Club’s argument is that the school allows non-related organizations to “use the facilities based on expressive activities.” The club has a neutral viewpoint and is specific on the subject matter of promoting moral values. The club does not violate the Establishment Clause because they are neutral, viewpoint is private and not a reflection of the school, and the club is not endorsed by the school. Additionally, the club is promoting the community to put themselves above others and that is discriminated against its religious speech. The previous cases that the club uses to support their argument are Lambs Chapel v. Moriches School District (religious viewpoint but not religious purpose), Rosenberger b. Rector and

In the case of Jones v. Massachusetts, Michael Jones, an employee of the Sussex County, MA clerk’s office refused to issue a marriage liscense to a same sex couple based on his religious beliefs. His supervisor terminated him from his job, and issued the marriage liscense personally. Jones brought this termination to court as a violation of his first amendment right to religious freedom. The following is a compilation of the evidence and logic that supports not only that this claim is constitutionally valid, but that the precendents the court has set also approve this notion.

Mrs Chief Justice and may it please the court. The issue that was brought up in this case was whether the Equal Access Act violated the Establishment which permitted government from creating any law that favors a religion over any other. The school officials believe that by granting Mergen’s religious group full access to form a club would create a whole new problem that it would be very difficult to ensure every religious group gets what they demanded. The officials had made this decision also because they are required to, citing from the establishment clause, establish an environment without the endorsement of any religious belief. While It make sense that the board of education of westside community school wanted to take a neutral position at religion because they are funded and regulated by the state and federal government, they did not know that by doing so they violated the Equal Access

This case involves a number of issues concerning free speech rights, the Establishment Clause, and their incorporation under the 14th Amendment. First, the Court must first decide whether the school facilities sought for use by the petitioner constitute a public forum to determine which standard of review should be applied to the State’s regulations. Upon establishing the standard of review to be used, the Court must determine whether the 1st Amendment free speech rights of the petitioner as applied to the states by the 14th Amendment were violated by the policy in question. If such a violation is found, the Court must subsequently rule whether said violation was justified by, as the State will argue, a compelling state interest in avoiding a violation of the Establishment Clause. Independent from these other issues, the Court must determine if, as the District Court ruled, the School Board’s policy’s distinction between permitted and prohibited activities is unconstitutionally vague.

1A. Although this case can easily be argued either way, I believe that the court should rule against the Grace Church of Devoted Followers. This case echoes Wisconsin v Yoder (406 U.S. 205). In Yoder, a group of Amish people refused to comply with compulsory attendance once their children reached high school age. The reason for that is because the Amish believe that high school will provide a more “worldly” culture for their kids; this directly goes against their core religious beliefs because Amish society emphasizes a “life of goodness” rather than intellect. The Amish do not object to education in the eighth grade on down, because they recognize the necessity for basic education.

The Santa Fe School District has over four-thousand students, as a result there is quite a large school board that is the governing authority in that area. The school board enacted a policy that permitted students to say or give a speech before home varsity football games of their school. The policy was to be implemented as follows by the high school principal: “Each spring, the High School Student Council shall conduct an election via the student body to choose a student to deliver the address”. (Eilers, 2000) This policy was taken by families of Mormon and Catholic descent who started this litigation under a Temporary Restraining Order regarding graduation exercises and said that the school district was becoming pro- Baptist by encouraging membership in religious clubs, and showing prejudice towards all other minority religious beliefs. The allegations also stated, “They also alleged that the district allowed students to read Christian invocations and benedictions from the stage at graduation ceremonies and to deliver overtly Christian prayers over the public address system at home football games.” (Eilers, 2000) The case was argued March 29, 2000 and decided the following month in the Supreme Court of the United States. This situation presents an early