School Tells Salutatorian to Remove Jesus from Graduation Speech
The Salutatorian of a high school senior class located in the southeast recently contacted us after he was told that he would not be able to give his graduation speech because it included his belief that Jesus is the answer in life. The Associate Principal suggested that he could mention God, but not Jesus, because some listeners could be offended.
Since the student was meeting with the principal the following day, we sent him a letter within a few hours explaining that valedictorians and salutatorians have a First Amendment right to include references to the role that God and religious faith have played in their own lives in their graduation speeches. We cited a Guideline issued by the U.S. Department of Education in 2003 which supports the idea that addresses given by valedictorians or salutatorians, who are selected due to their grade point averages and are typically given primary control of the content of their speech, are protected by the First Amendment from censorship due to religious content:
School officials may not mandate or organize prayer at graduation or select speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech such as prayer. Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content. . . .
Our letter also cited to cases such as Chandler v. Siegelman, 230 F.3d 1313 (11th Cir. 2000) and Adler v. Duval County School Board, 250 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. 2001) which are supportive of the ability of students to include religious content in graduation ceremonies and note the key distinction between student-initiated and school-sponsored religious speech. A reasonable person in attendance at a graduation ceremony will understand that the valedictorian or salutatorians remarks are his or her own and do not bear the schools stamp of approval.
In addition, our letter noted that, even in states located within the Ninth Circuit, which has held that public schools may require student speakers to refrain from including proselytizing religious speech in their graduation addresses, valedictorians and salutatorians may still include references to God as they relate to their own beliefs in their speeches in a non-proselytizing manner.
We will continue to monitor this situation as it develops.