FFRF halts clergy-led graduation prayers in N.D. school district
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded a North Dakota school district to end its longstanding, unconstitutional practice of including clergy-led prayer during high school graduation ceremonies.
A concerned student informed the state/church watchdog that the Lidgerwood Public School district had a years-long tradition of beginning high school graduation ceremonies with a Christian prayer delivered by a clergyperson. The student has personally witnessed this school-sponsored graduation prayer at the past four graduations, and their understanding is that the district’s graduation prayer practice had been going on far longer. A program from the most recent graduation ceremony indicates that an invocation was indeed delivered at the May 17 event.
The student, who belongs to a minority religion, told FFRF that the Christian prayer made them uncomfortable and pressured students to participate. “No one wants to be the only person not standing with their head bowed,” the student explained. The student was particularly concerned about facing the same religious exercise at their own future graduation, telling FFRF that they might skip the ceremony entirely rather than endure the discomfort of a school-sponsored prayer.
FFRF took action, urging the district to comply with court precedent to ensure that future high school graduation ceremonies do not include school-sponsored prayer, which have been ruled unconstitutional.
“School officials may not invite a clergymember, student, community member, teacher, administrator, or anyone else to give any type of prayer, invocation, benediction, or sermon at a public high school-sponsored event,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the superintendent.
High school graduation is a once-in-a-lifetime event that students spend over a decade working toward. As our student-complainant explained, the school’s shoehorning prayer into graduation made them so anxious about their graduation that they considered not attending it in order to avoid having their constitutional rights violated by their school. Including prayers at graduation puts many students and families in the difficult position of choosing between exiting or foregoing the ceremony or violating their conscience. The First Amendment forbids public schools from coercing students to make this choice. And making prayer part of graduation ceremonies and other school-sponsored events needlessly marginalizes students and families who are nonreligious or members of minority faiths, such as our complainant. Thirty-eight percent of the American population is non-Christian, including nearly 30 percent who are nonreligious. More than half of Generation Z (those born after 1996) is non-Christian, including a whopping 43 percent who have no religious affiliation.
FFRF is pleased to report that the district took appropriate corrective action. In a letter to FFRF, Ian R. McLean, the district’s legal representative, wrote: “The district will not sponsor or organize a clergy delivered prayer as part of future graduation programs. The district will continue to treat private religious and nonreligious expression neutrally and in accordance with applicable First Amendment law.”
FFRF welcomes the district’s commitment to ensuring future graduations are inclusive of every student — regardless of their religious or nonreligious beliefs.
“No student should have to choose between participating in a religious exercise that violates their conscience and feeling like an outsider at their own graduation,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We’re especially grateful to the courageous student who spoke up. Because they did, future Lidgerwood graduates will be able to celebrate this important milestone without a school-sponsored religious exercise.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 40,000 members across the country, including members in North Dakota, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF halts clergy-led graduation prayers in N.D. school district appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Virginia middle school students win LGBTQ club fight as school board members play victim
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Middle school students in Virginia who wanted to form a “Genders and Sexualities Alliance” group, only to be blocked by their district, have finally won their legal case just as the issue was set to head to trial.
As I wrote a few months ago, I initially thought this lawsuit was just in response to a straight-up denial of the group, but the more details I learned, the more I realized this district went out of its way to make sure this particular club, which used to be called the “Gay-Straight Alliance,” never met.
The drama began last August, when a seventh grader approach a teacher at King George Middle School about being the sponsor of the club (one of the prerequisites). With that person secure, they went ahead and filled out the necessary paperwork.
But within a couple of weeks, parents began complaining on a local Facebook group and doxxed the faculty sponsor, accusing her of grooming kids and demanding she be fired.
Instead of fully backing the group and sponsor, the school board and superintendent said they would put the GSA group “on pause” while they investigated matters… even though there was nothing to investigate.
The only legal way to prevent this group from forming was to ban all student-led non-curricular groups, per the Equal Access Act, but in October of 2025, the school board announced a different plan: They would let the principals get the say-so on any new student-led groups—and if a principal’s decision was appealed, the superintendent would serve as “final decisionmaker.” (The level of micro-managing here was beyond absurd.) They also said all new groups needed at least 10 members, a number they pulled out of nowhere. (It wouldn’t have mattered since 17 students expressed interest in the GSA.)
Even beyond that, board members argued that a GSA club would fail an “age-appropriateness” test, as if these students would gather each week to have orgies. (Apparently, gathering to discuss how you’re persecuted by others is too mature, but religious clubs that meet to discuss how non-believers will be tortured for all eternity are perfectly fair game.)
It was at this point that the Plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote a letter to the school board saying this delay was unconstitutional. (They never heard back.)
The school board only got worse after that.
In November, they approved a policy that only allowed non-curricular clubs at the high school level, effectively banning the GSA in a middle school. (This was happening even though Virginia law defines “secondary” education to include middle school, meaning you can’t treat a middle school different from a high school in this regard.)
The irony in all of this is that the school board attempted to play things neutral but so very clearly singled out the GSA group. At one point, middle school principal Dr. Casey Nice suggested the kids form a “PRISM Club,” which is similar to a Gay-Straight Alliance but doesn’t reference those identities. Superintendent Dr. Jesse Boyd said it was still a no-go, however, “because it was connected to LGBTQ+ topics.“ (The students weren’t fans of the proposal anyway.)
It got worse: Dr. Nice told one of the students’ mothers that the club might be approved if it was renamed the “Kindness Club” or the “Safe Space Group,” also erasing the LGBTQ+ identities. The students refused to play along.
This is how things went for months.
Administrators kept finding new reasons to prevent the GSA from forming while still breaking the law. The middle school allowed other non-curricular clubs to exist (like Yearbook Club and Robotics Club) but refused to approve the Gay-Straight Alliance. They even approved an outdoor club that had students “skinning squirrels.” What’s the curricular tie-in for that? Who knows.
That became an issue when a “Fellowship of Christian Athletes” club tried to form but couldn’t because of the new rules, and yet the administrators attempted to justify approval of the FCA by saying it was about leadership, which would make it “curricular.” (Bullshit.)
That’s why the ACLU of Virginia and Potomac Law Group sued the district.
Their clients have done everything by the book, they said, only to have the school board and administrators serve as obstacles every step of the way.
“King George County Schools cannot move the goalposts to prevent an organization that promotes respect and equality for LGBTQ+ students from existing just because school board members disagree with its message,” said ACLU-VA Staff Attorney Julia Kahn. “The First Amendment and Equal Access Act protect all students, and the school board cannot pick and choose who the rules apply to. Why this club, and not others?”
…
“Student clubs help students build community, find belonging, and thrive, and when schools offer those opportunities, the law requires that they be available on equal terms to all students,” said Mary Rohmiller, partner at Potomac Law Group. “But King George County Schools appears to be applying a double standard to the GSA at its middle schools. The students at the heart of this case are not asking for special treatment – they’re asking for equal treatment.”
It was such an absurd set of facts for something that probably wouldn’t have been an issue at all if school officials had just said yes at the very beginning. After all, who gives a damn if angry conservative parents complain? They complain about everything, never with any justification, so why not simply ignore them?
Maybe we know the answer. According to The Advocate, this particular school board had been anti-trans for a while:
The Advocate reported in January that the board had unanimously adopted a policy directing staff to use only the names and pronouns listed in students’ official records. The policy also restricts restroom access, overnight accommodations, and participation in sex-separated activities based on sex assigned at birth.
The lawsuit accused the district of violating the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act. The Plaintiffs included two (unnamed) students and their parents. One of the students was going to be in eighth grade this school year, meaning this case couldn’t just be dismissed as moot.
What the district’s actions made clear, however, is that this was never about procedure, or “age-appropriateness,” or some distinction between curricular and non-curricular clubs. Those were excuses they invented after the fact to block the group from forming. Every time the students met one requirement, administrators created another. The goalposts kept moving. And they made clear their biggest concern was that people might recognize that there’s an LGBTQ club on campus—one where students might identify as such openly. The only option those kids were given was to make themselves invisible.
But there is now a major update in the case.
On Friday, with the threat of a trial looming, along with discovery, and after a closed session during which staffers briefed board members on “actual or probable litigation,” the King George County School Board decided to rescind its own rules banning non-curricular clubs at middle schools by adopting more inclusive rules. (It took all of a minute during the actual meeting. At no point was the lawsuit publicly discussed.)
So they’re right back to where they started.
More specifically, the revised policies say all secondary schools (including middle schools) can organize and conduct non-curricular clubs. All students must have parental permission to join those clubs and renewal of the clubs requires a list of current members—which might deter some students from joining the GSA—but those are rules that apply to everyone.
This didn’t come out of nowhere, though. Last week, a federal judge announced that the two sides had reached a settlement, though the details had not been made public at the time. That settlement now appears to be complete capitulation from the school board.
But the board members want you to have sympathy… for them. The Fredericksburg Free Press reported on a statement that went out to parents in the district:
Board member Ed Frank said every student deserves safety, dignity, and protection from bullying. He defended the board’s focus on “age appropriateness, parental transparency, and rules governing extracurricular discussions.”
“In this situation, there is nothing to boast about, because the real victims are the students who aren’t yet developmentally ready,” Frank said.
Board member Colleen Hoover said “a lot of blood, sweat, and tears” went into the deliberations. She urged the community to support board members more when decisions become difficult.
They want you to think they were the real victims and not the students whom they shut out due to their own ignorance and bigotry and cowardice. Frank’s comments highlight that by focusing on “age appropriateness,” as if discussions about bigotry don’t belong in a middle school, and being “developmentally ready,” as if tweens couldn’t possibly know anything about about their sexual orientations or gender identities and are only focused on sex. That’s not what GSA clubs are about. Even though he approved the revised policies, his lack of understanding still shines through.
While the decision is welcome, The Advocate notes that we don’t actually know what happens now:
It remains unclear whether the students must restart the application process, when the GSA will be allowed to meet, or whether the settlement contains protections against selective enforcement of the new requirements.
We can at least rest assured that further obstacles to prevent a GSA club from forming will be monitored.
We also don’t know why school officials caved under the weight of a right-wing fake outrage campaign last year or how they plan to ignore the backlash this time around if and when the GSA group is formed.
Still, this is a complete victory for the students who wanted to form the group over the adults tasked with being their educators and mentors. Those adults chose to listen to conservatives who don’t understand the law and can’t handle mature discussions about LGBTQ issues instead of students who have to deal with those conversations every day and know their rights.
Those students showed more integrity than the adults running their school system. They understood that renaming their club to hide who they are was nothing more than cowardice. And they held firm for a year while this played out in courts.
The King George County School Board fixed a mistake it created, but this whole situation could have been avoided if they simply did the right thing in the first place.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
GOP candidate Michael Whatley’s “integrity” prayer was led by a registered sex offender
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How hard is it to find a conservative Christian pastor who isn’t problematic?
Recently, at a campaign event, North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley had Pastor Daimon L. King deliver the opening prayer. The prayer itself was predictably hypocritical, with King calling for “integrity and honesty” in a room full of voters who don’t care about either one.
But that’s not why the event made news. After the event, the Associated Press’ Brian Slodysko pointed out that King was a registered child sex offender who’s gone to prison two separate times for his crimes.
While there’s no video of the campaign event, Whatley posted a video from the event in which King could be seen giving a double thumbs-up behind Whatley and Dr. Mehmet Oz.
So what did King do that everyone organizing the event decided to ignore?
Some 30 years ago, King was a marching band assistant at a high school outside Raleigh when he was charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a 15-year-old student, The News & Observer reported at the time. King, then 31, was convicted in 1998 and served nearly five years in prison before being paroled, according to state department of corrections records.
In 2010, he pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage female relative and served close to three years in prison, state records show.
King is required under North Carolina law to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Nothing like a sex predator to tell Republicans about honor and integrity…
It’s not like any of this was a secret, though! This is information organizers could have discovered via an online search, but all of that was ignored, perhaps because King leads New Beginnings Celebration church, served as precinct chairman in the Craven County Republican Party (which put together this event), and is a Black MAGA shill. They thought the optics would work to their benefit. Now it’s backfired for an obvious reason: A guy who constantly talks about Jesus turned out to be someone you can’t leave your children with.
King’s church posted about the event the next day, saying the “atmosphere was charged with prayer and patriotism” and that “We fully support and are behind our US candidates, [House candidate] Col. [Laurie] Buckhout and Mr. Whatley.”
With supporters like that…
Whatley’s campaign denies having anything to do with selecting King to speak at the event, blaming everything on the Craven County organizers. But it doesn’t help that Whatley is already trying to distance himself from a different incident in which he was tied to a sex predator. When he served as head of the North Carolina GOP, one of his key leaders was Harvey L. West Jr., a congressional district committee chair, who had previously pleaded guilty to “five counts of indecent liberties with a child and served six years in prison.” He continued to be involved with the state’s Republican Party until they finally passed a rule banning convicted sex offenders from their leadership roles. Which is a rule they somehow needed to pass.
Ironically, West of all people says he raised red flags about the party having any kind of working relationship with King:
West also said he was familiar with King’s convictions and warned others in the party about associating with the pastor when he was considered for a GOP position. “I just said, ‘Hey, y’all might want to take a look at this,’” said West.
So a convicted sex offender warned Republicans against working with another convicted sex offender in order to help out the guy who downplayed his connections to the first convicted sex offender. All to help out the party that’s covered up the Epstein files.
All of this is another self-inflicted disaster for Whatley, who’s running to keep a Senate seat in Republican control. Democrat Roy Cooper, the state’s former governor, has a sizable polling lead over Whatley in what’s supposed to be a very close race.
It also raises a question of why voters should trust a party that cares this little about the safety of children. It seems that if you have a R(ev) before your name or an R after it, everything else can slide.
These are the people whom the overwhelming majority of white evangelicals Christians support.
