Yes, but that isn’t necessarily limited to financial loss or physical injury. The families who’ve won school prayer suits have mostly asked courts to order the school not to have prayers or whatever and pay their legal fees and costs - but there’s no particular reason they couldn’t ask for (and be awarded) a pot of money too.
I’m don’t know. I think they’re all praying to the same god. I’m not sure if He decides the outcome based on which team has the better prayer or which one prays harder.
I suppose He might just pick the one that scores the most points.
Not a very meaningful comment, to be honest. The interesting question is what are the First Amendment rights of students.
It isn’t about someone praying in my presence. It is about whether I should pay for your public prayer, and whether it should in any fashion have the imprimateur of the state placed upon it. At the moment, some decisions of some federal courts have (mistakenly IMHO) determined that a student giving a prayer at a school function that is an integral part of the school year, through a tax payer provided PA system, in a non-open forum (i.e. the speaker is selected by the school, and others are not allowed to speak) does not present the impression of state sponsorship. I don’t know how that can be rationally defended, but then again, I don’t understand how ceremonial deism can be rationally defended.
Look, it is possible for the principal to end up in handcuffs in situations like this. Whether or not there is any financial compensation, if a judge says that the school sponsored prayers will end, they will end… or someone will get locked up for contempt of court. Sheriff, DA, Governor bedamned, if the judge says lock him up, he will get locked up.
While the plaintiffs in these suits are not necessarily seeking monetary damages (and sometimes the plaintiffs are the pro-prayer people suing a school that won’t let them enegage in practices that the school feels violate the Establisment Clause), it is not true that compensatory damages must necessarily be awarded in order to award punitive damages.
In a lot of the cases we’re talking about, though, plaintiffs are only suing to get a school to change its practices, not to collect money.
In this case, we are talking about freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. I will assume I don’t need to cite the finding of the Supreme Court that students do not forfeit their First Amendment rights at the school house door.
Not merely whether it should - whether it does.
Two points - first, you are not entirely correct in your phrasing of the question. Defense is necessary, not of the students engaging in religious speech, but for any action the school might take to interfere. That’s what needs to be justified. If no justification is produced, then the actions of the students must be allowed to proceed.
Second, ‘no interference by the schools’ is easily justified. Think of it like this - the police provide taxpayer funded protection for all the citizens and lawful institutions in their jurisdiction. This includes private residences, businesses, and public accomodations, without discrimination. Note that this includes churches. Even though police are paid thru public funding, no violation of SoCaS is occurring. Police do not get to pick and choose which of the citizenry get protection and which do not.
Same thing here. Some students may choose to engage in religious speech, and others may not. The school may not pick and choose which of the Constitutionally protected speech they will allow and which they will prevent. Either it all goes, or none of it goes.
No one can be compelled to join in, of course, but since we are talking about student-led activities, no compulsion is involved.
The school may also not allow students to hijack official functions and PA equipment to pray at other students. Having a right to pray does mean you have the right to use a school microphone to do it, or to force other students to listen to it as a condition to receive their diplomas.
There’s no hijacking involved, of course - the PA equipment is set up so that students can speak. Therefore, any attempt by the schools to censor speech based on content is a violation of the First Amendment.
Incorrect. Any attempt to use school equipment to endorse religion (or to make listening to that endorsement a condition for collecting a diploma) is a violation of the First Amendment.
Yes, but it is a truism that the government cannot restrict First Amendment rights. The question is whether the activity concerned is a First Amendment right.
You are misreading what I am saying. The defense that I suggest is needed is defense of the idea that paying for speech, and providing the forum, and limiting the speakers at the forum, does not create and inpression of state action. I do not believe that can be rationally defended. I wasn’t talking about defending a particular type of speech, or a restriction on a particular type of speech.
But the fact is that a commencement address is restricted, on many grounds. You think a person would be permitted to make a white power speech as their commencement address? Isn’t racist speech “constitutionally protected speech” by people in other situations? Clearly it is…
What has happened is that religion has been segmented out as defended in this forum. (Actually in many fora - it is one of the problems of the way the First is written). What they are doing is exactly what you say they cannot - the school IS “pick[ing] and choos[ing] between Constitutionally protected speech.”
Except they aren’t, really, because your language repeats the earlier truism. What they are saying is that student led prayer at a school function IS constitutionally protected speech, and racism is NOT constitutionally protected speech. And that is the view point which I am not sure can be rationally defended.
The school is picking and choosing, by its own admission in my earlier post:
The school has total control over the proceeding. That they give the students a vote is NOT an abrogation of their control. Thus, if the school admin controls the event, they are responsible for it, and any praying that occurs.
The 3rd Circuit court’s take here on Free Speech in this context:
Bolding mine. Supreme Court’s take on compulsion in a ‘volunteer’ event from Lee v. Weisman here:
For nine unelected justices to override the will of the people would force people to not participate in a prayer that they wish to participate in. That is as much an offense against freedom of speech as forcing people to hear the prayer. Saying that everyone in the student body and audience is “forced to participate” is a strange interpretation. How could someone be forced to participate if they’re free to think that they’re not participating?