Friday, March 02, 2007
By HOWARD BUCK, Columbian Staff Writer
A dust-up over group prayers in the Heritage High School commons before the start of school triggered the suspension of a dozen students on Friday.
It also quickly threatened to fan up into a broader skirmish in the culture war.
By day’s end, “pagans,” “Satanists” and religious freedom were words in play, and a Florida-based group affiliated with Jerry Falwell had announced it would defend the students.
A top Evergreen Public Schools administrator downplayed the incident but confirmed that 12 pupils were disciplined after they ignored a faculty order to stop meeting for prayer in the commons area at the 2,200-student high school near Orchards, one of Clark County’s largest schools.
A praying student ordered to detention on Friday said two group co-leaders received 10-day suspensions, while eight others were given three-day suspensions. They had been warned on Thursday not to meet again in the commons, she said.
Bill Bentley, an Evergreen assistant superintendent who oversees Heritage, said pupils were warned days ago that their informal morning prayer sessions were blocking traffic in the crowded commons. Other students complained to school faculty about the prayers, he said.
Heritage administrators offered use of a classroom to the group, per written district policy that allows religious or other student clubs to use school facilities during non-school hours, with limited supervision.
Bentley said it was the physical “disruption” of the prayer group inside the busy campus corridor and open defiance of faculty orders that earned the suspensions, not the prayers themselves.
“No one gets suspended because they pray. This is a story of some kids who chose to defy a legitimate request by administrators to not disrupt other students,” Bentley said.
Per privacy rules, he would not elaborate on details of the suspensions.
School officials had contacted several parents and youth pastors to explain the situation. That allowed word to spread. On Friday, the media quickly latched onto the story. One Portland television crew reportedly came to Heritage to interview students.
Also, the Orlando, Fla.-based Liberty Counsel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell and his conservative, religious Liberty University in southern Virginia, issued a news release declaring it would defend the Heritage students.
“It is absolutely outrageous that the school allowed one Satanist student to exercise a heckler’s veto over the other students’ speech,” said Anita L. Staver, Liberty Counsel president. Liberty Counsel describes itself as “a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family.
“ Bentley called the entire flap a “non-story.”
“I’m positive there was also some outside influence on this. There were some folks pushing to make this an issue that aren’t part of our Evergreen community,” he said.
Bentley said leaders of the prayer group had been given a district brochure that lists “Students’ Rights of Religious Expression and Practice.” The guide cites the right of “student-initiated religious clubs” to gain access to “facilities and media” on the same basis as other student clubs. Evergreen policy also allows students to individually pray “unobtrusively” at any time, so long as it does not interfere with normal school instruction.
But a member of the loose, multi-faith group disciplined on Friday said it doesn’t want club designation, nor to be pushed to a “secluded” classroom.
Junior student Megan Gaultier, 16, who first joined the prayers on Thursday, said the 10-to-15 minute, standing prayer circles, where students held hands and prayed softly in one portion of the commons-cafeteria area, were purposely low-key.
When one student Gaultier described as “pagan” objected to their prayers but in a respectful manner, the group obliged by moving elsewhere, Gaultier said. But four or five students complained to administrators, apparently forcing the crackdown, she said. The prayer group had not yet decided whether to accept an alternate site by Friday, when members were pulled aside and suspended, she said.
“We’re not bothering anybody. If we’re not preaching and passing out fliers, why can’t we do it?” Gaultier said. “Basically, there are just the pagans who are against it.” She identified herself as Baptist, while several Russian Orthodox students, a Methodist and a Catholic formed the roughly week-old group, she said.
The prayer circle’s purpose is visibility, to give other shy students the strength to express their faith, Gaultier said. “If we’re in a secluded room, they can’t just join in” as she had, Gaultier said. Group members’ friends have prayed at other Vancouver and Evergreen high schools without a hassle, she said.
Kathryn Murdock, attorney for Vancouver Public Schools, said prayer groups likely were active in Vancouver district high schools. Students’ “right to freedom of expression” is honored when it’s not distracting, a point she has long hammered home in staff training sessions, she said.
“If they’re not intimidating other kids, if they’re not being coercive, they would be allowed to continue in their prayer,” Murdock said. If pre-, post-school or lunchtime group prayers grow disruptive because of outsider taunting, “the problem is with the students doing the taunting, and those are the students that need to be dealt with,” she said.
Neither Gaultier nor Bentley said heckling occurred at Heritage. Gaultier said assistant principals were supportive and had stayed “calm” despite the sanctioning.
Evergreen policies fall completely in line with common public school practice, Bentley said. There was no bias against the praying students, he repeated.
“They’re in the middle of a very busy area, grouped together, so others couldn’t get around,” he said. “Other kids cannot avoid it. That’s not appropriate, whether they’re praying or whatever they’re doing.”
“They’re in the middle of a very busy area, grouped together, so others couldn’t get around,” he said. “Other kids cannot avoid it. That’s not appropriate, whether they’re praying or whatever they’re doing.”
Deserves to be repeated.