Pike Central High Removes Prayer Locker

Emily Chaney, a Christian student at Pike Central High, created a “prayer locker,” where students can submit confidential requests for other students to pray for them. Based on Facebook posts from the school’s art department and other students, it appears that a faculty member at the high school gave Chaney this idea to create a prayer locker. However, someone in their community sent a complaint letter to a group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit organization that advocates the separation of church and state, which included an image of the now-deleted Facebook post from the school’s art department. The organization argued the prayer locker is “likely a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” Americans United staff attorney Ian Smith signed the letter to the school district, which describes various legal precedents that uphold the separation of church and state in schools. “It is pretty straightforward that public schools cannot display religious messages, and they can’t encourage their students to pray or engage in religious activity,” Smith said in an interview.

In addition, there have been other cases in Kentucky that question the separation between church and state. Just starting this year, Kentucky schools are required by state law to display the national motto, “In God We Trust,” in a prominent place. This raises the question of how a prayer locker differs from a religious national motto. Smith weighed in on behalf of Americans United, saying that the two are essentially the same. Smith later went on to explain the fact that the federal courts permit symbolic gestures like the national motto under the doctrine of “ceremonial deism,” a legal term used to designate governmental religious references to be only ritual and non-religious through long customary usage. U.S. Supreme Court Justices William Brennan Jr. and Sandra Day O’Connor argued that even if “In God We Trust” has a religious origin, it has been used for government purposes for so long that the phrase has lost its religious meaning. 

In reference to the prayer locker, Smith said that the federal courts have been clear that students can organize and advertise religious activities that take place after school hours, however they can not use school resources or staff to communicate their religious messages. The school’s district attorney recommended that the school should remove the prayer locker. In response, Emily Chaney stated that maintaining this locker was “the biggest blessing” and she will continue to spread her prayers in person in the cafeteria as an exercise of her religious freedom. 

I found a connection between this case and the case we read in class, Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens By and Through Mergens. The school administration at Westside High School denied permission to a group of students to form a Christian club due to the fact that the Equal Access Act was deemed constitutional because it served an overriding secular purpose by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of philosophical, political, and other types of speech. This case connected to this article on the basis that both focused on a student-run religious practice. In both instances, there was no faculty member directly involved, which creates a bigger distinction between the government and the religious act performed because the blame for the disruption of the division between religion and state fell solely on the students.

Another case that related to this article is Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. The Court concluded by stating that the University could not stop all funding of religious speech. There is no Establishment Clause violation for UVA honoring the duties under the Free Speech Clause, which violates freedom of speech. Similar to this article, Pike Central High has the ability to shut down the prayer locker, as UVA died funding to the publication titled Wide Awake. By regulating this content, Pike Central High adhere the viewpoint from the government aspect, which does not stop the communication of prayer, but only the government-owned locker promoting religion. 

In my opinion, I agree that the school has a right to stop the prayer locker due to it being government property, which is paid for by the community's taxes. Under the Establishment Clause, something that the government and community own cannot promote a specific religion. By keeping the locker up and running at Pike Central High, it creates a slippery slope between religion and state, deeming it unconstitutional. However, I also believe that Emily Chaney has a right to protect her freedoms of speech and religion by stating and promoting her religious beliefs outside of school hours and off school property. In the article, she states that she can and will keep spreading her Catholic beliefs throughout her community, promoting the Free Exercise Clause, and I believe that is well within her rights.