ACLJ Steps In After Students Were Prohibited From Praying During See You at the Pole

Last month, our client and a few other students gathered around their flagpole before school to pray during See You at the Pole at their school in Boise, Idaho. However, shortly after arriving, they were told by their school principal that they must cease praying and come inside the school building. The students were informed that they might “disturb the peace” by praying. This is, of course, a clear violation of our client’s First Amendment rights.

Our client and four other students were joining millions of other students across the county to gather before school on Wednesday, September 25, for See You at the Pole – an annual national student prayer event. Despite the fact that this is a well-known event that has occurred for decades, and despite the fact that case law protecting students’ right to pray before school has been well-settled for decades, the school’s principal stopped the students from praying.

The ACLJ immediately stepped in and contacted school officials to inform them of the students’ First Amendment rights and to demand that it provide assurances that it will not interfere with our client’s and other students’ religious speech and free exercise again.

Any instruction to students not to pray and any interference with their attempts to pray before school independently or as a group is a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects a student’s freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion – each of which was violated in this situation. As the Supreme Court explained more than 50 years ago in the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, 393 U.S. 503, 511 (1969), “students . . . [do not] shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Whether a student “is in the cafeteria or on the playing field, or on the campus during authorized hours, he may express his opinions.”

The law could not be more clear on this issue. School officials are prohibited from censoring student speech because of religious content. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education requires every public school that receives federal funding to certify “that it has no policy that prevents, or otherwise denies participation in, constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary schools.”

The ACLJ has demanded that the school provide written assurances to our client that it will protect students’ constitutional right to pray privately and publicly on the school campus without interference in the future, including at the flagpole before school begins. Any failure by the school to comply with our request and provide these assurances will necessitate further legal action to protect students’ rights in schools across Boise, Idaho.

Our client has acted bravely to speak up and seek legal assistance to ensure that his rights – and the rights of all students within the school district – are protected in the future. Without his courage, the matter would have been buried, and students may never have been permitted to pray again around the flagpole at this school.