News Religious valedictorian sues Nevada school

[arildno]

Well I respectfully disagree.

I consider it greatly intolerant not to allow someone to express their religious beliefs.

Again, you deliberately twist the issue. She made her valedictorian speech into a preaching sermon, something that was totally out of order, and that she had been told beforehand was not acceptable.

No one would have protested if she had said that her faith had been a source of inspiration, strength and solace to her during her studies, but that is not what she did.


Rather, she showed by holding this sermon that she only regards the Bible and fellow Christians to have any sort of moral authority, that she belongs to the clique of the righteous few, and that everyone else are moral and human non-entities.
Against them, she can do whatever she pleases, not bothering about how they might feel about it.


And that is deeply disrespectful of her towards the audience (and humanity at large).

 

[MeJennifer]

Again, you deliberately twist the issue. She made her valedictorian speech into a preaching sermon, something that was totally out of order, and that she had been told beforehand was not acceptable.

No one would have protested if she had said that her faith had been a source of inspiration, strength and solace to her during her studies, but that is not what she did.


Rather, she showed by holding this sermon that she only regards the Bible and fellow Christians to have any sort of moral authority, that she belongs to the clique of the righteous few, and that everyone else are moral and human non-entities.
Against them, she can do whatever she pleases, not bothering about how they might feel about it.


And that is deeply disrespectful of her towards the audience (and humanity at large).

Well I am sorry but this whole posting does not make a lot of sense to me.

Must be me

 

[arildno]

Not surprising, in light of your previous posts.

 

[Astronuc]

""In my heart I couldn't say the edited version because it wasn't what I wanted to say," she told The Associated Press. "I wanted to say why I was successful, and what inspired me to keep going and what motivated me. It involved Jesus Christ for me, period." http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jul/13/071310623.html"

Makes sense to me.

If McComb had stated "I was inspired by God and his only son to work hard, . . . " and left it at that, it probably would have been fine. Or she might have been restricted to "I am inspired by my religion (religious beliefs), Church, parents, . . .".

But I think she went over the line when she started preaching (or proselytizing) with

God's love is so great that he gave his only son up," she said, before the microphone went dead. She continued without amplification, "...to an excruciating death on a cross so his blood would cover all our shortcomings and provide for us a way to heaven in accepting this grace."

She had been warned, and she simply ignored the officials (which shows contempt for others who do not believe the same way), and delivered her message. She abused the privilege given to her - which in itself is rather hypocritical.

 

[Smurf]

woah, Americans are so weird.

 

[arildno]

(This is a comment to a now deleted post):
Hmm..why should exactly 3 abortions be conducive to her academic success?
Unless she actually shows that this is, indeed, conducive for her academic success, it is irrelevant information of a too private nature.

However, that a personal faith may impart a sense of purpose, that your life is seen as meaningful, and at times, helpful as a crying pillow is well known.
Hence its relevance.
It by no means follow from this that hammering religious DOCTRINE into her public as she did is acceptable.
In particular since she had agreed not to do so.

 

[selfAdjoint]

woah, Americans are so weird.

Which weirdness are you commenting on here?

 

[arildno]

I am Norweirdish, not American...

 

[kyleb]

Which weirdness are you commenting on here?

I'm sure he is talking about those of us who respect the separation of church and state.

 

[arildno]

Hmm, coming from a Canadian, I would think he referred to the actual existence of churches in the US..
(I've heard there are a couple of such buildings in Quebec, but I'm not sure..)

 

[SpaceTiger]

It seems pretty clear to me that a student shouldn't be allowed to proselytize in a school commencement speech. She was warned too...if I were running the school, I would have done more than cut off her mic.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'm sure he is talking about those of us who respect the separation of church and state.

I thought it was maybe the somewhat incoherent behavior of priding ourselves on our prescriptive right to freedom of speech, and then tying ourselves in knots when somebody excercises, according to her own lights, that right.

 

[BobG]

She had been warned, and she simply ignored the officials (which shows contempt for others who do not believe the same way), and delivered her message. She abused the privilege given to her - which in itself is rather hypocritical.

To be complete, she had been warned, asked for justification for the decision, received an ambiguous response (the reason was ambiguous, not how the school would respond), and then decided to ignore the officials.

The issue is whether the school had the right to censor the speech in the first place based solely on religious reasons and whether the school even followed national guidelines.

When it comes to the content of graduation speeches, the school has to be religiously neutral. That means the school shouldn't use the religious content (or lack of religious content) as the reason for prohibiting or censoring a graduation speech - it doesn't mean the speech has to be religiously neutral.

Of course, that is just my interpretation of a 'guideline' that is really just a long case history of numerous lawsuits that have occurred nationally. While school districts are required to have guidelines on what they have to avoid or what they have to allow, it's kind of hard to avoid being ambiguous when policy is based on court cases. If the cases avoid conflicting with each other, they only do so because the cases are decided on some fine point of law vs a defining principle that someone could base a policy on.

The Department of Education gives some guidance:

Prayer at Graduation

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. To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech (whether religious or nonreligious) is the speaker’s and not the school’s.

That's easy for the Department of Education to say, but lawyers for individual school districts are more interested in finding a path through a mine field of lawsuits.

In general, schools can't actively promote school prayer at a graduation. That would include having a school official lead the prayer, arranging for some outside speaker to lead the graduation prayer, selecting a student to lead a school prayer. Schools also need to avoid giving the impression of endorsing religion by allowing religious content in graduation speeches while prohibiting other topics (i.e - the school can't get around the rules by only selecting speakers who they know will include religious content). It also includes putting the issue of school prayer up to majority vote by the students. Schools may think they're avoiding playing an active role by letting the students decide, but they're playing an active role in the process by holding the vote in the first place.

Schools also have to ensure they don't violate the First Amendment rights of their students or their community. They can't censor or prohibit a graduation speech or decide against a particular speaker solely because of the religious content of the person's speech. They also can't put the issue of who could lead a school prayer up to majority vote (the school gets slammed on both sides for this one, since the majority vote ensures religions in the minority never get expressed - hence a violation of the First Amendment rights of students in a minority religion). The school also can't bar religious organizations from using school facilities after hours if the school makes the facilities open to other community groups.

The only leg the school has to stand on is that they may require the student to delete content that falls outside the scope of the purpose for the presentation. I haven't seen a transcript of the speech, but if she is crediting religion for motivating her to be successful, the school is going to have a hard time saying the content falls outside the scope of the purpose. In fact, so far, it seems news articles all quote the same single sentence that occurred immediately prior to the microphone being cut off, but also say there were other religious references in the speech. A single sentence isn't a religious 'sermon' and 'other references' is pretty ambiguous.

I also like the part where schools can "make appropriate, neutral disclaimers". If the school isn't careful, they can get themselves in trouble with their disclaimers, as well. They really are walking through a minefield when it comes to religion, but they stepped on one of the mines in this case.

 

[kyleb]

I thought it was maybe the somewhat incoherent behavior of priding ourselves on our prescriptive right to freedom of speech, and then tying ourselves in knots when somebody excercises, according to her own lights, that right.

Yet it isn't here right to freedom of speech that is taken issue with here; but rather, again, her attempt to proselytize though the power of the state.

 

[Office_Shredder]

For a full transcript:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jun-20-Tue-2006/opinion/8027170.html

 

[pcorbett]

Students in schools do not have the freedom of speech that citizens in public do.

This doesn't address any point made so far. Since administrative restriction of free speech is permissible to achieve certain educational aims and is not discretionary, it is not sufficient to point to such a diminution is justification for restraining or punishing a student's expression. See Sante Fe ISD v. Doe, Widmar v. Vincent, and West Virginia v. Barnette. You can start with Santa Fe [1].

Neither do soldiers in the army or employees at work.

Neither situation is comparable in the sense you imply. Public school students are minors, receive no renumeration for being students, and do not volunteer into such status. Even so, the point stands that employees, public and private, enjoy free speech protections. Once again, it isn't sufficient to point to dimunition as evidence of administrative discretion in restricting speech.

In all these cases there is legal authority to squelch, censor, bleep and delete speech that is incompatible with the authority's purposes. And this is all part of US law and conformable (say the courts) to our constitutional liberties.

See above.

The Cardinal of Chicago can't go with a bull horn and hector women going into an abortion clinic either. He calls it counseling and considers the ban a restriction on his freedom of speech.

Wow. Where'd you get that idea? [http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/02pdf/01-1118.pdf]

 

[Smurf]

Which weirdness are you commenting on here?

All of them?

 

[vanesch]

(This is a comment to a now deleted post):
Hmm..why should exactly 3 abortions be conducive to her academic success?

I deleted my post because after re-reading I found it not very appropriate in the conversation - sorry that you already replied.

As to your question: academic achievement is in a (large) part a social convention: you're judged by people on not always objectively measurable criteria. As is well known, pleasing your judges in one or another way might give you a favorable bias

However, that a personal faith may impart a sense of purpose, that your life is seen as meaningful, and at times, helpful as a crying pillow is well known.
Hence its relevance.
It by no means follow from this that hammering religious DOCTRINE into her public as she did is acceptable.
In particular since she had agreed not to do so.

I think nobody would have objected her saying that her religion helped her through hard times, motivated her, gave her wings . That her belief in [...] was a source of inspiration. Etc... But that wasn't what she was saying. She was stating elements of her religion as facts without a relationship to her success.

 

[arildno]

I urge everyone to actually read that girl's "valedictorian" speech.
It is nothing of that sort, in fact, it is quite clear that she couldn't care less about holding a speech RELEVANT for this particular audience.

It is, simply, a SERMON, where everything else than her religious devotion is deemed irrelevant and without significance.

That alone makes her speech wholly inappropriate and irrelevant as a valedictorian speech.

 

[daveb]

Religious content aside, is it me or are all valedictorian speeches that self-centered and self-indulgent?

 

[Astronuc]

Religious content aside, is it me or are all valedictorian speeches that self-centered and self-indulgent?

Not all, but some tend to be.

BTW - in the US, from my experience, the valedictorian is selected on the basis of grades and participation in school and community activities. It is supposed to be impartial.

 

[arildno]

Religious content aside, ...

Then she would have had to remain mute. Which would have been for the best.

is it me or are all valedictorian speeches that self-centered and self-indulgent?

Eeh, it rather has to do with the self-centredness of religious fanatics of her ilk.

 

[Gokul43201]

Personally, it doesn't rattle me that she essentially took the pupit to give a sermon. Heck, she could be urging the audience to murder, pillage and plunder, for all I care. Nor does it astonish me that all the audience wanted. I really couldn't care less.

What I do take away from this is to try and make sure no one I give a damn about goes to Foothill High (fortunately, I know no one in Vegas) - if the best they (the school) could do was that twit, it must be a pretty pathetic school.

 

[Danger]

The reference at the end of her first paragraph wasn't too bad; it's what I'm used to hearing from just about everyone expressing good luck or whatever.
If I had been a member of the audience, student or otherwise, I would have been extremely offended and walked out when she got into it about half-way through. No one should have to put up with that kind of crap unless they go someplace specifically to hear it. It's a whole different situation than if one went to a church or even a concert with a musician whose religious views are known. This nut-burger ruined what should have been a joyous occasion for her classmates.

I will thrive whether I attend a prestigious university next fall and become a successful career man or woman or begin a life-long manager position at McDonald's.

No wonder she's so screwed up, if she doesn't even know what sex she belongs to.

 

[Gokul43201]

If I had been a member of the audience, student or otherwise, I would have been extremely offended and walked out when she got into it about half-way through. No one should have to put up with that kind of crap unless they go someplace specifically to hear it. It's a whole different situation than if one went to a church or even a concert with a musician who religious views are known. This nut-burger ruined what should have been a joyous occasion for her classmates.

Did you not see the video? The audience was booing the school for pulling the plug. The girl became an instant hero and celebrity with the audience, and got a standing ovation for her canting.

 

[arildno]

Did you not see the video? The audience was booing the school for pulling the plug. The girl became an instant hero and celebrity with the audience, and got a standing ovation for her canting.

The video wasn't working for me.
Seems like a disgusting neighboorhood where the Christians are holding everyone in the iron grip of orthodoxy, and the sole light of sanity is the headmaster at this school.

This is akin to the type of petty, dangerous religious brainwash mentality scientists had to battle against in the 18th and 19th centuries.

 

[Danger]

No, I didn't see the video; I doubt that I could stomach it. The point, however, is that the whole situation with the audience would never have arisen in the first place if she hadn't ignored the guidelines.

 

[kyleb]

Personally, it doesn't rattle me that she essentially took the pupit to give a sermon. Heck, she could be urging the audience to murder, pillage and plunder, for all I care. Nor does it astonish me that all the audience wanted. I really couldn't care less.

That is of course your choice not care here, but using the power of the state to insight such a riot isn't covered by freedom of speech either.

 

[BobG]

I urge everyone to actually read that girl's "valedictorian" speech.
It is nothing of that sort, in fact, it is quite clear that she couldn't care less about holding a speech RELEVANT for this particular audience.

It is, simply, a SERMON, where everything else than her religious devotion is deemed irrelevant and without significance.

That alone makes her speech wholly inappropriate and irrelevant as a valedictorian speech.

You've got a point about what message she wanted to send. It was a recruitment speech for Christianity squeezed into the cut-out of a graduation speech.

However, if after the fourth paragraph, instead of talking about God and Jesus, she had talked about how she had discovered the relationships she developed with friends and teachers were far more important than any of her personal achievements, thanked those that had meant so much to her during her high school years, and urged her fellow students to remember their relationships with friends and families would always dwarf their personal achievements or failures, would the speech have been acceptable?

If so, then the speech she gave is probably going to be deemed as acceptable. Whether the speech offends people or makes them feel good about their high school days isn't a factor in determining the relevance of the speech. You have to look at all graduation speeches and hers only has to be as relevant as other speeches that are typically given at graduation. I think it's usually a pretty lenient standard - especially if a school has allowed other speeches only slightly relevant just because they liked the speech - they've redefined the standard for how relevant speeches have to be.

The school's lawyer misinterpreted court rulings (or, more likely, felt that very strong coercion preventing controversial speeches in the first place carried less risk than a small chance of the school being associated with religious speeches). The argument that the school could be found responsible for the student's speech won't hold water unless the school actually does something to at least increase the odds of students giving religious speeches.

They'd be on more solid ground to argue the speech was clearly aimed at recruiting new Christians and was only superficially related to graduation. Even that's a tough road because so much leniency is normally given on whether a speech is relevant to the graduation ceremony or not.

 

[arildno]

The difference is that God cannot be shown to exist, it remains a personal fantasy, whereas friends demonstrably exist.

Don't degrade real, actual friendships by comparing them with subjective flights of fancy.

A proper analogy would rather have been:
If she prattled on about leprechauns and unicorns in her valedictorian speech, would you regard it as appropriate that the plug was pulled when she started this?

(She had, of course, been warned beforehand that she should not talk about Mickey the fat Leprechaun).

 

[kyleb]

The school's lawyer misinterpreted court rulings (or, more likely, felt that very strong coercion preventing controversial speeches in the first place carried less risk than a small chance of the school being associated with religious speeches). The argument that the school could be found responsible for the student's speech won't hold water unless the school actually does something to at least increase the odds of students giving religious speeches.

They did increase the odds of students giving religious speeches by aranging audince for a girl who showed clear intention to use her opertunity to proselytize in public. That is why they asked her not to, and that is why they are required to pull the plug on her as well.

 

[BobG]

They did increase the odds of students giving religious speeches by aranging audince for a girl who showed clear intention to use her opertunity to proselytize in public. That is why they asked her not to, and that is why they are required to pull the plug on her as well.

If the first time they ever had the valedictorian give a speech at graduation, then, yes, the coincidence that the person chosen was going to give a Christian infomercial would raise some suspicion about why the school suddenly decided valedictorians should give graduation speeches.

There is a definite chance someone could bring a lawsuit if the school had allowed her to give her speech the way she wanted. There is even a remote chance that the court could find the school responsible for the speech. It would be a ludicrous decision in this instance, but it would be possible.

Deciding her speech was inappropriate because of its religious content is a violation of the constitution if the religious content resulted in a different standard being applied. To be on sound legal footing, the school has to have a different reason than the religious content.

They will be on more solid footing if they compare the situation to a student taking advantage of the opportunity to speak by trying to sell Amway products in the middle of the graduation ceremony. That gives a reasonable chance that a judge would dismiss the case before it ever gets to court (after all, the student was gaming the system by relying on legal technicalities - her speech was superficially related back to something pertinent to graduation, but the intent of the speech was clear).

If the case does make it to court, the court will get the opportunity to read past graduation speeches that were approved so they could compare the standards those speeches were held to to the standards that McComb's speech was held to.

I just doubt there's much of a standard to compare to. If the speech doesn't contain foul language or strong sexual content, I'm guessing students were allowed to say just about anthing they wanted. After all, aside from the speaker and their family, and maybe an individual or two mentioned in the speech, no one is going to remember what the valedictorian said, anyway. Most of the things said at a graduation are to fill up time and provide a little more 'pomp and circumstance' than would be provided by just having students stand in line in the cafeteria to pick up their diplomas.

I doubt the school will even go to court in that position. If a judge doesn't toss the case immediately, the school will settle out of court with monetary damages and an apology.

Even so, this is nothing more than a Super Bowl bet. There's enough conflicting cases that you can't know how it will turn out. You can bet on who you want to win, or you can bet on who you think will win, but there is no clear cut up or down here.

As far as who I think should win? In general, I'd fall towards being very lenient on what you allow the students to say. In this case, I'm a little ambivalent. She definitely gamed the system, so she doesn't get a lot of sympathy. Still, there's a lot less damage done by allowing her to speak than there is by censoring speeches based on whether someone agrees or disagrees with her. I'd say she should win.

 

[BobG]

The difference is that God cannot be shown to exist, it remains a personal fantasy, whereas friends demonstrably exist.

Don't degrade real, actual friendships by comparing them with subjective flights of fancy.

A proper analogy would rather have been:
If she prattled on about leprechauns and unicorns in her valedictorian speech, would you regard it as appropriate that the plug was pulled when she started this?

(She had, of course, been warned beforehand that she should not talk about Mickey the fat Leprechaun).

Your analogy is a proper analogy.

You're not going to have a court declare that God exists or that God does not exist. You won't even get a court to declare that leprechauns or unicorns exist or don't exist. In fact, you won't get a court to declare that gravity exists. That's not the type of thing that's in the purview of the courts.

You could have a state legislature decide to pass a law saying God exists or a law saying God does not exist. You could even have a legislature pass a law saying gravity or leprechauns exist. None of these things are within the purview of legislature either, but politicians are silly enough that nothing is completely out of the question.

If you think the issue depends on whether God does, in fact, exist or does in fact, not exist, then you don't understand the concept between separation between religion and state. Which is correct is irrelevant when religion doesn't even fall under the purview of government.

There's only two issues: Was a government organization endorsing a particular religion? Does the student have the right to express her views?

 

[loseyourname]

Isn't there a third issue as well? Sort of "he who giveth the stage can taketh it away?" She was not standing out on the street or in her frontyard with a crowd of people gathered to listen to her speak about her religious leanings. She was provided with a stage, an audience, and a microphone by the school. It would seem they have the right to take any of those things away for any reason whatsoever. Or is it actually written into law that a valedictorian has the right to speak at a commencement ceremony? I was under the impression it was simply custom and the school was under no legal obligation to let her speak at all about anything.

 

[kyleb]

"he who giveth the stage can taketh it away?"

And he who giveth the stage has the reasonability to taketh it away when the person on the stage oversteps the rights of he who's stage it is.

 

[Gokul43201]

If I stand up in a restaurant or movie theater and generally start behaving idiotically, would the management be violating my rights by having security throw me out?

Isn't there also - in addition to the argument on separation - the argument that the audience came to attend a Graduation ceremony, and not a sermon, and hence were having their rights infringed upon?

And finally, is a school a democracy? May schools not have rules that curb the individual freedoms (afforded by the Constitution) within the school environment? Haven't school uniforms, for instance, survived such a challenge?

 

[arildno]

Your analogy is a proper analogy.

You're not going to have a court declare that God exists or that God does not exist. You won't even get a court to declare that leprechauns or unicorns exist or don't exist. In fact, you won't get a court to declare that gravity exists. That's not the type of thing that's in the purview of the courts.

You could have a state legislature decide to pass a law saying God exists or a law saying God does not exist. You could even have a legislature pass a law saying gravity or leprechauns exist. None of these things are within the purview of legislature either, but politicians are silly enough that nothing is completely out of the question.

If you think the issue depends on whether God does, in fact, exist or does in fact, not exist, then you don't understand the concept between separation between religion and state. Which is correct is irrelevant when religion doesn't even fall under the purview of government.

There's only two issues: Was a government organization endorsing a particular religion? Does the student have the right to express her views?

No, the issue is should the student be allowed to blather on about irrelevant religious doctrines when she has been told not do so?

 

[BobG]

Isn't there a third issue as well? Sort of "he who giveth the stage can taketh it away?" She was not standing out on the street or in her frontyard with a crowd of people gathered to listen to her speak about her religious leanings. She was provided with a stage, an audience, and a microphone by the school. It would seem they have the right to take any of those things away for any reason whatsoever. Or is it actually written into law that a valedictorian has the right to speak at a commencement ceremony? I was under the impression it was simply custom and the school was under no legal obligation to let her speak at all about anything.

Yes, there is. Schools could decide these things are just more trouble than they're worth and drop them completely. They just can't selectively give the right or withhold the right based on the speaker's personal views.

In fact, eliminating student speeches and guest speakers will probably be the eventual outcome in many school districts.

Groups wanting to ban prayers from graduation (reasonable) and to ban speakers even mentioning religion (unreasonable) use lawsuits as their weapons. Even if the school could win a lawsuit, they're facing legal costs and at least the risk of losing the lawsuit. The safest solution winds up being to settle out of court to minimize the risk, but it's a solution that definitely impacts the school's budget. Prevention winds up being the best solution. Avoid any risk of someone bringing a lawsuit about the school's association with religious statements.

With groups wanting school prayer and a closer association between schools and religion also bringing lawsuits, there is no safe route. The school faces the risk of a lawsuit whichever option they take. Of the two groups, the advantage tends to go towards the side promoting religion, since that group also tends to support school vouchers (people who would rather send their kids to religious schools tend to support school vouchers - don't they realize that anti-religious groups would then just bring lawsuits to prevent religious schools from promoting religion at government expense?). The pro-school voucher side is less likely to worry about damage to the public school system.

Dealing with lawsuits just becomes a permanent part of school budgets unless they just avoid the whole situation by eliminating speakers they can't control. Only official school officials will be able to speak at graduations.

 

[kyleb]

In fact, eliminating student speeches and guest speakers will probably be the eventual outcome in many school districts.

Just the ones who are intent in oversteping the rights of the state.