Prayers at school spark debate about freedom

VANCOUVER, Wash. – They formed a circle and held hands, praying for the welfare of their school, the nation and the president. Some prayed silently. Others spoke English or Russian.

Administrators at Heritage High School repeatedly asked the students not to pray in the busy commons area and offered them room where they could meet before school. The students refused, triggering a showdown that ended with 11 suspensions.

That penalty has sparked another flareup in the longtime national controversy pitting students’ rights of free expression against a school’s court-ordered duty to separate religion and education.

Similar disputes have erupted across the country, but Clark County’s clash over prayer in school has a unique element: Several of the suspended students are members of the Church of Truth, a congregation of predominantly Russian-speaking immigrants who settled in the U.S. for the opportunity to freely express their religious beliefs.

“We never expected things to happen like this,” said senior pastor Sergey Kozlov, who said his church didn’t organize the sessions but supports the students. “For us, it’s really important to express our beliefs fully, because that’s the reason we came here.”

The case has been seized upon by national advocacy groups.

The Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based conservative legal group aligned with the Rev. Jerry Falwell, has thrown its support behind the students, threatening to sue the district over the principal’s suspensions. School officials received numerous complaints from radio listeners in Wisconsin, a Christian radio station in Florida plans to air a discussion of the incident, and churches have phoned in solidarity.

On the other side is Heritage High and Evergreen Public Schools, whose administrators say they were just trying to get students to class safely and on time, and to evenhandedly apply rules about student gatherings.

Bill Bentley, an assistant superintendent in the Evergreen School District, said officials aren’t trying to stop students from praying.

“If the issue is, can these kids pray at school, the answer to that is yes,” he said. “Is anyone going to attempt to stop them from doing that? No, as long as it’s not disruptive to our educational process.”

Heritage administrators said the location – an area all students must pass through to get to class – and the size of the group posed an impediment to others, and participants didn’t follow rules about organizing student groups.

The group’s religious practice also inflamed emotions among students with opposing beliefs, and as tensions rose, administrators were concerned “something was going to erupt,” Bentley said. At least once, non-Heritage youths participated without signing in at the school office, which poses a security concern, he said.

Megan Gaultier, 16, a Heritage junior, joined the group at the invitation of a friend. The two were skeptical when an associate principal said they needed to form a club to continue to meet.

“We wanted to find out what our rights were,” said Gaultier, who attends Battle Ground Baptist Church. Nonetheless, the club requirement wasn’t a big issue for her.

“I’m in it for the prayer, not the publicity or protest,” she said.

With his 19-year-old son, Dima, acting as translator, Kozlov, 42, said the group was concerned about prayer, not visibility. But, after growing up under a communist government that fined and jailed those who expressed their beliefs, the right to pray in the open is precious, he said.

“Preaching and sharing what we believe in (is) what our parents had to go to prison for,” Kozlov said. Backing the prayer group is an opportunity “to stand for what is right.”

“It was the desire of our hearts” to come to America and give their children the freedoms he and his elders did not have, he said. “We love this country.”

Some in Clark County’s religious community are restrained about where such expressions of faith should be conducted.

“Do I think students should follow policies for how to organize a group? Yes,” said Roger D. Miller, principal of Vancouver Christian High School. “Do I think sometimes religious groups in schools get unfair treatment? I’d probably agree with that, too. Whether this is one of those cases, I don’t know.”

Bentley said prayer was not the problem.

“The issue (of) where they chose to gather became a problem over time, and they were asked on several occasions” to move to a different spot, he said.

“We’re going to say no if they impede traffic and are disruptive,” he said. “We’re not attempting to regulate anybody’s free speech or prayer.”

Complaints from students with “diametrically opposed beliefs” was not the issue, he said. But when administrators “anticipate, reasonably forecast” that tensions could erupt, “it is incumbent on adults” to keep students safe, Bentley said.

Five students received one-day, in-school detentions; six received three-day, out-of-school suspensions.

The issue has illuminated contrasting legal opinions.

Schools can have neutral policies preventing groups of students from meeting in a common area, especially if they are blocking traffic or interfering with others’ rights, said Stewart M. Jay, professor of law at the University of Washington School of Law.

“But to meet and have a quick prayer, it’s not a lot different than a gaggle of students getting together and talking in the hall,” Jay said.

Heritage officials’ concerns about violence could fall short of the needed standard, especially under the Washington Constitution, which has stronger protections for free speech and religious expression than the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, Jay said.

“In our society, if you don’t like what someone is saying, you’re supposed to walk away,” he said.

Disputes about students’ free speech and religious expression are resolved legally on a case-by-case basis, said Aaron Caplan of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington in Seattle.

“Generally, judges give a lot of regard to the view of the school’s principal,” Caplan said.

Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation for Church and State, said based on what he has heard, the district acted properly.

“Students, even religious students, don’t get to make the rules in a public school,” he said from Washington, D.C.

But Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, said he fired off a letter to the district, demanding the suspensions be expunged from the students’ records. He threatened a federal lawsuit if they were not and called the suspensions an overreaction.

“A school policy about clubs and limits regarding meetings is too broad,” Staver said. With First Amendment issues, “you have to use a surgeon’s scalpel.”

This week, a small group has met daily in a classroom before school while a larger group, including adults, has prayed each morning on the sidewalk in front of Heritage, which is located in a working-class neighborhood of modest homes. The suspended students were back in school on Wednesday.

Miller, the Christian High principal, questioned the point of initially insisting on meeting in the commons instead of a classroom.

“God,” he said, “can hear your prayers wherever you are.”