The Board of Trustees of the Pearl Public School District in Mississippi has announced there will be no prayer at graduation in 2025 after the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint.
Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute explains other options available to the administration.
“The school district could have actually revised it, tweaked it, and said this is a moment of solemn expression. The student chooses the content of the solemn expression. It could be a poem. Or it could be a prayer. That is another way they could have addressed it."
Prayer had been a part of commencement exercises at Pearl High School since 2019.
Though many schools across the country engage students with questionable content regarding gender or content of a sexual nature, FFRF asserts impressionable students should never be expected to engage in what it calls religious rituals.
Claiming indoctrination when convenient
“School districts exist to educate, not indoctrinate into religion,” the FFRF’s Annie Laurie Gaylor says.
Dacus believes the foundation does not have an accurate understanding of the Constitution.
"The idea that students, when they go to school, should be totally guaranteed no exposure to any student's faith at anytime is ridiculous. It’s also not solid case law."
According to conservative Memphis-based show host Todd Starnes, students have a constitutional right to embrace religion in taxpayer-funded public schools.
