The focus of today’s discussion revolved around public schools and religion. It is clear that teachers are not allowed to pray with their students in a public school. We also established in class, that students were allowed to pray on school grounds as long as a teacher was not involved. However, I came across an interesting article that said otherwise.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/12-students-suspended-for-praying-at-school-26130/
Briefly said, this article reports that a dozen students from Heritage High School was suspended for praying in school
“The individuals, who met for about two weeks before 7 a.m., decided to pray in the school cafeteria, instead, where an alleged Satanist student complained to the school office.”
“The prayer group was instructed by the vice principal to go and pray outside rather than in the cafeteria. The students persisted in praying in the lunch room, however, because of the inclement weather outside. As a result, they were suspended for ten days.”
Students being suspended for praying in school? Really? Students are doing it on their time with their fellow friends. I doubt that it is something disruptive or harmful to other students. Is it really fair to penalize these students for praying at school? I mean they have a right to exercise their belief and it is without the expense of other students. If the court allows this to happen, won’t students in schools in the U.S question their religious freedom and be hesitant to practice any kind of religious act?
–Janie Lee
I know you posted this a while ago, but when I last read it there was no space for comments.
It is interesting to note how this incident gets covered in different news sources. This link, for example, provides a quite different perspective: http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/03/heritage_high_prayer_group_stu.html
and here as well:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2007/mar/07030609
What is especially intriguing to me is the use of the word “satanist” in the article that you had found (another article uses the term “pagan”). Would it be different if it was a Jewish, or Muslim, or Atheist student who complained?
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