Dio: Here’s another hypothetical. As part of a school ceremony, each Monday morning the principle plays part of the president’s weekend radio address over the loudspeaker. Must any reference to God be bleeped out?
Now we’re back here:
So, what is wrong with this parsing of who is endorsing what?
Also, Dio, could you please respond to my questions in Post 48 and the hypothetical I posed in Post 40? Thanks.
I don’t see her as being invited. I see it as her having earned the right. At the beginning of every school year everyone is of the mind that 1) there will be a valedictorian and 2) that person will have the honor of addressing her classmates and passing on some words of wisdom. The wisdom is what is in her little head. No one knows to what she attributes her past and (theoretically) future success other than she. You can’t ask her to share those thoughts and then tell her what those thoughts are. Your position seems quite Orwellian to me.
No.
It’s not about what’s being said, it’s about who’s saying it and whether they’re saying it within any official context.
I don’t think this is about one reference to God. If it were, the young lady’s microphone would pronbably not have been turned off. The students don’t have to listen to the prosletyzation to get their diplomas, but they do in order to participate in the ceremony, which they understood to be secular when they sat down. I would let her speak if they had an intermission befoerhand, and informed the students that in ten minutes, she would be discussing Jesus for ten minutes. That way anyone who didn’t care to hear about Jesus, or is offended by being told about Jesus, or whose faith requires that they not remain silent while she says (for example) “Jesus actually didn’t die for most of the people here, but only for the few who, like me, were elected to be saved and spend eternity in Paradise,” could simply choose not to return for 20 minutes.
But these honors are given out purely at the discretion and the pleasure of the school. There is no inherent legal right for students to speak on a school PA system and therefore no inherent expectation of free speech for what they say on them. The school doesn’t have to let anybody say anything over its microphones and are completely responsible for anything that IS said. That’s why I say that valedictorians are speaking as agents of the school. They are speaking at the invitation of the school, on behalf of the school with agreed upon parameters for the content of their speech. They are not exercising an inherent right they are participating as invited officials in a secular, state sanctioned ceremony.
Couple of points here, John.
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The valedictorian speech with religous content may not pass the first prong of the “Lemon Test”. Is there a legitimate secular purpose in letting little Rhonda Religous spout off about how the Flying Purple Unicorn helped her study? I’m not sure there is. Allowing the speech may fail the second prong, for advancing religion by forcefeeding a captive audience, especially those of less tolerant faiths or no faith and no interest in any faith. Allowing the speech may fail the third prong by requiring the School to obtain a draft and censor its content to avoid potential liability and avoid infringing the rights of others in the audience.
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If I might apply the say test to your hypothetical posed to Dio, I’d say playing the PResident’s speech serves the legitimate secular purpose of educating students about current events and politcal affairs, to pass prong one. The school has no ability to control the content of the President’s speech, so the school is not
advancing or inhibiting religion by playing the President’s speech, which would be generally considered a newsworth event in the public forum, to pass prong 2. There is no excessive entanglement with religion–the school is simply playing a recording of a historical event, to pass prong three.
Again, the above is only my personal opinion, offered for the sake of argument.
But it wasn’t. It was decided about 3/4 through the year, when the administration started figuring up who was gonna be what. As I said, are you going to federally mandate how schools can pick their valedictorian and when they have to have it done?
If not, how are you going to keep them from using a speech ostensibly written by the valedictorian (or salutatorian, or whomever else they choose as their ‘student representative’ for those schools that have dropped the valedictorian thing altogether - leaving it even more open to the school selecting students on religious grounds) as a means to proselytize to / pray over the student body? Since you’re maintaining that the student giving the speech can say absolutely anything they want, as long as it’s religious.
I note that you have no objection to schools banning other topics, words, etc., as long as the ban isn’t based on religion. What happened to the rest of the student’s free speech rights? The first amendment isn’t solely about religion, y’know.
Are you honestly suggesting that the plea, “Slay the Christians, and aid us to **drink the blood of their babies ** to the greater glory of Cthulu” is nothing more than “an opinion on the importance of Christianity in one’s life”?
Do you not see the critical distinction here?
There is no legal distinction. Religious views are not afforded more or less freedom of expression based upon any perceived level of validity or offensiveness and it’s not a distinction which has any bearing on the establisment Clause.
It seems that for prong one you are not treating those two cases the same. For the prez, you are focusing on the speech as a whole while for the student you are focusing only the specific references to God. Here’s how I see it:
Allowing the student speak serves the legitimate secular purpose of educating students about the thoughts and motivations of a fellow student who excelled academically. If the speech only casually mentions God, it can’t be reasonably claimed that that was the primary purpose of Rhonda, much less that of the school. I would agree that proselyzing in this context could be a violation.
For the second prong, you seem to be igoring the word “primary”. As long as references to religion aren’t required, and as long as they are only casual (ie, not proselytizing), how can it reasonably be claimed that the action has the “primary” effct of advancing religion? If anything, disallowing casual references to God seems to have the primary effect of inhibiting religion (which is forbiden by the test).
You lost me in your reasoning for entanglement. If the school’s poilcy is to to have an adminstrator proof-read the speech for a variety of reasons-- advocating illegal activities, profantity, or whatever-- how does adding “religious prozeltyzing” to the list become excessive entanglement? Maybe I’m missing something but your reasoning seems circular. The government is involved in all kinds of activity where it has to exclude certain religious groups. You can’t keep religion out of government if you interpret “entanglement” the way you are. In fact, the school needn’t proofread the speech at all-- it can just have a list of guidelines for the student to use and leave it at that.
I am fairly close to to Magellan’s position, with side orders of Diogenes andJohn Mace. The only real “contract” here is between school and individual student: “Finish the requirements, and we’ll give you a diploma that attests you graduated.” There are three historically-founded expectations present:
- As a graduate, you’ll get your diploma at a graduation ceremony to which you can invite your parents, grandma, etc.
- If you get the best GPA in the school, you’ll be named valedictorian and get to make a speech to the graduation-ceremony audience.
- The content of that speech is expected to be roughly what Magellan outlined earlier: a combination of “how I got here,” “whom I’m grateful to,” and “what we can learn from it all.”
She is not a free agent in that particular role. She has every right to acknowledge that, in her perception, Jesus helped her to be the person who just graduated and became valedictorian. There’s no difference, content-wise, between that and acknowledging the help of her chemistry teacher or her mother. She does not have the right to use that forum to proselytize or harangue as to what faith or moral actions her listeners should take.
Here’s my thinking: It’s an issue of agency legally. If Cecil wants to use a quote from me on the board in his next book, and Ed Zotti sends me a release form, I can authorize him to sign it in my behalf, giving him a limited power of agency. But it’s limited to signing that release; Ed cannot sell my car to Tubadiva for a dollar using that authorization. The valedictorian is the agent of the school for that one limited duty and honor: giving the valedictory speech at graduation. When you use a given forum to exercise your right to speak freely, you agree to the limitations placed by that forum on what you might otherwise say. If I think a given file-sharing program is wonderful and everyone should use it, or am so moved by a copyrighted poem that I believe everyone should read it, the SDMB staff is quite within their rights in prohibiting me from promoting that program or retyping in full that poem.
Compare the following: It is the privilege of any citizen to suggest that masturbation is a healthy and beneficial practice, to be engaged in as often as possible. He is exercising his freedom of speech. However, a 14-year-old boy selected to do the morning announcements over the school’s speaker system is not privileged to add in that suggestion, even though he has the freedom to say so at other times and places. This is where Shodan is in error. The girl chosen valedictorian has every right to prosetylize, using her freedoms of speech and free exercise. She does not have the right to do so while exercising that particular role; it’s an inherent limitation in the forum she has agreed to use.
Now, the Lemon test: By the “reasonable expectation” test, students have a “right” to be present at their graduation, and not be harangued by a sermon-in-disguise as a part of their attendance. (“Right” in quotes because it’s not an absolute guarantee but an reasonable expectation.) The valedictorian has been chosen and authorized to speak by the school; she is therefore its agent for this particular task (even though it’s an honor). She is therefore to some extent bound by the school’s duties and limitations. She herself has a reasonable expectation of being able to express her gratitude to those she believes gave her help and support. That’s secular in nature. That this may include the God she believes in is an incidental inclusion of religion in a predominantly secular setting, and permissible. On the other hand, to convert her speech into a predominantly religious address goes beyond that incidental inclusion to make religion the focal point of her speech, and she may reasonably be enjoined from using the forum of her valedictory speech for that purpose. In fact, she must be so enjoined by a public school because of the Establishment Clause.
I don’t see Angelina Jolie as being with Bradd Pitt. I see her as my girlfried, and she has to acknowledge that.
My argument is just about as strong as yours.
You can throw around buzzwords pretty good! Congrats.
I’d say that’s exactly my position-- no side orders. 
There most certainly is a distinction. The statement “Slay the Christians, and aid us to drink the blood of their babies to the greater glory of Cthulu” calls for the death of specific human beings, not to mention a ritualistic act (drinking the blood of human babies) that would offend the sensibilities of even the most liberal citizens. The statement “Thank you, Jesus” does not.
Honestly, Dio. We all know that you have an axe to grind against religion, but does this go so far as to insist that these two statements are even remotely comparable?
That is a problem. That is why the standards for who is valedictorian need to be stated clearly. If that person is simply chosen by the school, then I’d agree with you and say that she is acting as an agent of the school and they have every right to curtail her speech.
Say what? I suggest you review my posts, because that is not even near what I’ve said. If you’re going to so carelessly mischaracterize my posts I’ll leave someone else to respond to you.
Thank you for you substantive, detailed response. You have contributed greatly to the debate and me understanding you better.
Okay, but show me where any of that is protected by law.
Because one invokes religion, and the other does not.
Right: that’s exactly what it is. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The school has a right to decide what viewpoints it wants to be aired at an event it has setup and for which it has provided all of the equipment and other arrangements. If the restrictions are too onerous, the student can decide to decline the honor. No one has the right to be valedictorian.
Sure. But so what? If you’re asking me the question, you get to set whatever conditions on it you want. I might not like the conditions, and I might feel that the conditions render the answer meaningless, but that doesn’t mean I have the right to answer the question I think you should have asked, and I don’t have the right to demand you sit there and listen to the answer I want to give.
Besides, if hollow and meaningless graduation speeches were against the law, they’d have to send the SWAT team into every school in the country come June.
“One,” when used this way, is synonymous with “you.” It’s not a statement about the speaker as an individual, but how the speaker believes everyone should behave. If someone says, “It’s important to have Jesus in one’s life,” what they’re saying is, “It’s important to have Jesus in your life.”
I agree with the posters who have said an expression of personal faith wouldn’t be objectionable or illegal. However, the line where, “I suceeded because I love Jesus,” elides into “and you didn’t because you don’t,” is often hard to see, and I don’t blame schools for trying to avoid the headache altogether. And I think schools have that right. They’re not telling students what to think, as magellan has implied. They’re just telling them what to say as part of their official position as valedictorian, during an official school function. Which is entirely within their rights.
A valedictorian is simply chosen by the school. Academic success is just the criteria the school has decided on to make that choice. If a school decides that valedictorian goes to the best dressed student, or nicest student, or just picks a student’s name out of a hat, it doesn’t change any aspect of this debate.
Polycarp, a few niggles. I don’t see how you can say:
and
The first statement implies a contract of sorts with the student body as a whole and each member of it individually. The honor is either earned or one handed out at the whim of the school. It can’t be both. If the valedictorian is chosen, she is an agent of the school and her speech can be curtailed on religious grounds. If the honor is earned, outside the hands of the school, she is not an agent of the school and her speech cannot be curtailed on religious grounds, as long as the speech is on point.
Are you arguing that this implied contract is, or should be, legally binding?
Why not?
That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Even though the honor is earned, it is still an honor that has been invented, defined, and dispensed by the school. There’s no way that the role of valedictorian is anything other than an agent of the school. How one becomes valedictorian simply doesn’t enter into it.