THE PRE-GAME PRAYER VS. THE LAW.

THE NEWEST BATTLEGROUND IN THE SCHOOL-PRAYER DEBATE IS THE FOOTBALL FIELD, WHERE A HOST OF SCHOOLS ARE DEFYING THE SUPREME COURT

It's homecoming night at Batesburg-Leesville High School, and the girls in the homecoming court, wearing long purple dresses and dazzling yellow corsages, flutter nervously through the jammed stadium. In Batesburg-Leesville, a hamlet of 9,000 in the pine barrens of western South Carolina, there's no movie theater or bowling alley. The game is it. Up in the press box, sophomore Alicia Koon, 15, nervously twists a piece of paper in her hand. The drill team gathers on the field in a circle holding hands, a color guard bears the flag to the 50-yard line, and the crowd falls silent. Alicia leans toward the microphone and reads:

"Heavenly father, we thank you for this night that we may come to this athletic contest. Guide all of our players throughout this game. Help them to maintain fair play and show good sportsmanship. Be with us as we return to our homes this evening, and help us all to be in good spirits, no matter the outcome of tonight. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen."

The crowd roars, the band strikes up, the moment passes. Yet in that short statement, Alicia and her listeners have played their part in a defiant movement rippling through high schools in many parts of the southern United States this fall. Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that organized prayer at public-school football games violates the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state. The ruling struck hard at a cherished tradition of prayer before football games, particularly in the Bible Belt--the swath of mainly Southern and Midwestern states where fundamentalist religious beliefs prevail. Although most school districts have abided by the ruling, others in states like the Carolinas, Alabama, Ohio, Arkansas, and Texas have fought to continue the custom, creating a new front in a decades-long war between school-prayer advocates and those who think prayer should be a private matter.

The battle pits two clauses of a single constitutional amendment against a third. The First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of speech and religion, which protect the right of Americans to worship as they please, but also requires the separation of church and state, which protects the rights of religious minorities to be free from pressure to conform to the beliefs of the majority. It is a battle in which students are on the front lines.

"We never had anyone come up and say, look, I'm offended by this," says Emzi Watkins, 17, a Batesburg-Leesville senior, who, like many students, opposes the Court ruling. "I'm not for just my right as a Christian. It's for anybody's right, anybody's kind of religion there is."

But her best friend, Matt Williams, 17, a senior, is one of a handful of students who have openly spoken out against the policy. "I think it's a violation of rights of everybody else who believes differently," he says. "Of course, in this town it's a small minority, but I think the Supreme Court judges were right in saying that everyone has equal religious rights. By doing this over a government-sponsored PA system, it's really a violation of the separation of church and state."

PROTESTANT PUSH?

The case that started the current controversy began in another small Southern town, Santa Fe, Texas, population 8,500. There, the pre-game prayer was just one element of what some critics saw as the school's push for Protestantism. One teacher told a Mormon student that her religion was a cult. A Protestant Bible group was allowed to pass out Bibles. And each year, the school elected a chaplain who read Protestant prayers before high school games. The parents of two students, one Mormon, the other Catholic, sued the school district, saying the prayer policy was unconstitutional.

The school district argued that the students were exercising their right to free speech. But the Supreme Court ruled in June that because the school set aside time for the prayer, used the school PA system, and held elections to choose the person leading the prayer, the speech was a school-sponsored event. "The delivery of a pre-game prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship," the ruling said.

THE BACKLASH

School-prayer advocates were furious. They argue that the prayers don't force anyone to join in, and say the Court has twisted the meaning of the First Amendment. The Amendment, they say, was written to make sure the government didn't establish an official religion. "A prayer at a high school football game asking that the players on the field not get hurt and the fans get home safely is in no way the establishment of religion by the government," says U.S. Representative Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.)

Several groups launched protests. One group, We Still Pray, in Asheville, North Carolina, held a prayer rally in the local high school stadium in August that drew 25,000 supporters. In many schools, during Friday-night games, groups of students stood up and began praying on their own. Such prayer, most legal experts agree, does not violate the Constitution, since it is private and not sponsored by the government.

In Batesburg-Leesville, school officials changed their prayer policy this year in the hopes of bringing it into line with the Supreme Court ruling. Instead of a prayer being read by an elected member of the student body, any student can sign up to speak--though so far, no one has offered anything but a Christian prayer.

These prayers may still be illegal, since they take place at a school-appointed time on a school PA system. But for now, no one has sued to enforce the law. Often, the American Civil Liberties Union, a constitutional-rights watchdog group, has sued school districts on behalf of parents or students who object to school prayers. But in Batesburg-Leesville, "we have no Jewish families," says Judy Turner Fox, spokeswoman for the school district. "We have no Muslim, no Buddhist, so the ACLU has not found anybody who wants to come forward and sue on this."

MORE BATTLES TO COME

Many students believe the issue has been blown out of proportion. "It's just a football game," says Marvin Dozier, 17. But court watchers say that the debate isn't likely to go away. A U.S. Appeals Court ruled in October that students could pray at school events in Alabama as long as the school didn't directly sponsor the prayer. Critics quickly pointed out that the court had ignored the part of the Supreme Court ruling that said when schools provide the PA system for a prayer, they are in fact sponsoring it.

Alabama officials disagree. "For the same reason a school cannot sponsor a prayer or religious speech, it also cannot censor a prayer or religious speech," says Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor.

Who's right? Constitutional experts say the Supreme Court ruling contains enough loose language that the Alabama case will probably have to go before the Supreme Court for clarification.

Meanwhile students are left to wrestle with their desire to continue a tradition and their wish to do right by those who disagree with them. "If people are truly offended," says Emzi, "I'd like to know about it. I'd like to help them. We'd see what kind of compromise we could come up with."

FOCUS: Schools Ignore Supreme Court Ban on School-Sponsored Pre-game Prayer

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand the rights and prohibitions enshrined in the First Amendment, specifically how the Supreme Court interprets that Amendment to ban state-sponsored prayer in public schools.

Discussion Questions:

* Do you agree with the Supreme Court ruling in Santa Fe v. Doe?

* What's the difference between state-sponsored prayer in public schools and state-sponsored courses in religion?

* Marian Ward, the young woman who led pre-game prayers in Santa Fe, Texas, argues that the courts have become anti-religion. Which part of the First Amendment does she think is being neglected?

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Amendment Analysis: Study the First Amendment. Discuss why the Founders insisted that the new United States prohibit the establishment of a religion. Is there something unfair--or even dangerous--about having an official religion? (The Founders knew that religious wars had ravaged Europe through the ages.)

Next, look at the clause prohibiting laws that would prevent the free exercise of religion. Do these clauses contradict or complement each other?

Debate: Students can debate two elements in the Supreme Court ruling: that pregame prayer is coercive and that use of the school public address system connotes school-sponsorship of prayer.

To help students formulate their debate, have them consider pros and cons of public prayer. For example, students might argue that common prayer helps people recognize important values. On the con side, students might address the charge by those of minority faiths that community prayer excludes them.

Critical Thinking: How can government enforce the prayer ruling? With fines? By prosecuting school officials? (Troops were used to enforce the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that required the racial integration of public schools.) Note that two topics in this issue--prayer and movies--have involved Supreme Court free-speech rulings. Why does free speech keep popping up?

Web Watch: For information on the origins of the prohibition against the establishment of religion, log on to www. religioustolerance.org/amend_1.htm

TO PRAY OR NOT TO PRAY: WHAT THE LAW SAYS

You're sweating bullets before you take your SATs. Can your class pray for divine intervention? What if your school football team is battling for the championship? Can the captain say a prayer in front of the crowd?

Questions like these are the subjects of serious debate in public schools--and in the courts--across the country. And both sides claim that the Constitution is on their side.

The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom with the words: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..." That means that the government (including public schools) cannot formally support religious activities or favor one religion over another; but also that it cannot interfere with the expression of religious beliefs. The First Amendment also guarantees the right to free speech. In cases involving prayer at public schools, the Supreme Court has had to balance the separation of church and state against the freedoms of speech and religion.

When it's OK to pray

The Constitution guarantees every student the right to discuss religion freely and to pray individually or in small groups. Since the early 1990s, many Christian students have voluntarily congregated around their schools' flagpoles to pray. A religious group called "See You At the Pole" estimates that more than 3 million students participate in these prayer circles each year.

In addition, students are permitted to initiate and lead a prayer in a classroom, assembly, or football game, provided that school officials do not participate in any way. After-school Bible clubs are allowed to operate in most of the nation's 15,000 school districts. Students have the right to distribute religious literature and express their beliefs in artwork, homework, and other academically appropriate contexts.

When prayer is silenced

What is not legal is school-sponsored prayer. In the 1962 case Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled against the reading of a state-sponsored prayer at the start of the day in public schools. Justice Hugo Black wrote that the government "should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves." With more than 1,500 religious groups in the U.S., the Court says, public schools should not be able to choose one religion over another by selecting any one prayer.

In response to the decision, many schools instituted a moment of silence before classes. However, in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), the Supreme Court knocked down Alabama's moment-of-silence law, finding that the state was trying to sneak religion in through the back door.

In June, the Court ruled that public schools cannot let students lead prayer over the school public-address system at school-related events, such as football games. Many schools, however, have continued the practice in defiance of the ruling. So despite four decades of rulings on the issue, more are undoubtedly to come.

--Chana Stiefel

The Ruling on Pre-Game Prayer

The case at the center of the pre-game prayer controversy began in 1995, when two Santa Fe, Texas, families who objected to the prayers being offered at school events sued the local school district. The district policy required the election of a student chaplain to recite prayers at football games and student assemblies. In June, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn the policy, saying it violated the First Amendment's required separation of church and state. Here's what the Court said:

* Prayer at football games "has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship."

* Such prayers have the school's "seal of approval," since they "are authorized by a government policy and take place on government property at government-sponsored school-related events."

* The school may argue that its approach is "hands off," but "the realities of the situation plainly reveal that its policy involves both perceived and actual endorsement of religion."

* The school district's policy clearly suggested that a nonreligious message, "such as commentary on United States foreign policy, would be prohibited."

For more information about the battle over prayer in school, visit UPFRONT ONLINE.

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