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11th Circuit reconsiders—and still likes prayer in schools
The Supreme Court has been legislating up a storm these days. The most recent decision regarding school prayer by the Supreme Court outlawed public religious addresses when students were selected by the school and used the school's P.A. system to pray before football games. Because this wasn't private speech, the Supreme Court said it was not constitutionally protected. After ruling on this case from Santa Fe, the Supreme Court ordered the 11th Circuit Court to review its recent decision to allow schools to continue student-led prayer over the intercom and before graduation and other school events. Now the 11th Circuit Court is done with its review process and sticking to its decision to allow student prayer in Alabama schools. "Private speech endorsing religion is constitutionally protected—even in school," said the decision, written by Senior Judge James C. Hill. "Such speech is not the school's speech even though it may occur in the school. Such speech is not unconstitutionally coercive, even though it may occur before nonbeliever students." (See the text of the decision in HTML format, or as a Zipped WordPerfect document at the court's official site.)

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October (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44