Despite lawsuit threat, school board in one Arkansas city to resume prayer at meetings

The Harrison School Board has decided to resume praying before its meetings.

The board stopped the practice temporarily after receiving a March 6 letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation threatening a lawsuit.

But the seven-member board voted unanimously last week to resume the public prayers, said board President Jon Burnside, who votes only in the event of a tie.

"The board had no discussion," Burnside said. "The motion was made to continue prayer, and it passed unanimously."

After an article was published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on March 21, and picked up by other media outlets, the School Board was inundated with letters and telephone calls in support of prayer, Burnside said.

The board president said he received 35 letters and 30 phone calls, all from people encouraging the School Board to keep praying before meetings.

Burnside said he researched the matter, conferring with lawyers and looking at other school districts where prayer became an issue. Burnside said the board believes it is within its rights to pray because it is a legislative board comprised of elected adults.

"This is not a classroom," he said. "This is a legislative-type meeting. We felt like we were within our rights to continue to pray."

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Patrick Elliott, a staff attorney for the foundation, said they recently learned of the board's decision to continue the prayers.

"As long as the prayers continue, the board is violating the Constitution and subjects itself to legal liability," Elliott said in an email. "Any parent of a student could challenge this at any time. [The foundation] maintains that school board prayers are unconstitutional. We will consider our legal options going forward."

The foundation, based in Madison, Wis., monitors issues regarding separation of church and state.

Elliott sent a similar letter to the Springdale School Board on Dec. 29.

The Springdale board stopped praying before its February meeting and is still doing its due diligence, said Randy Hutchinson, that board's president.

"At this point we're still in a holding pattern," he said. "At this point we have decided not to pray before the meeting to make sure all our legal ducks are in a row, so to speak."

Burnside and Hutchinson each said nobody had complained to them or their school boards about the prayers.

In both letters, Elliott wrote, "We ask that you immediately refrain from scheduling prayers as part of future school board meetings to uphold the rights of conscience embodied in our First Amendment."

Elliott said the letters were sent after complaints were received regarding meetings of both school boards.

"It is beyond the scope of a public school board to schedule or conduct prayer as part of its meetings," Elliott wrote in the letters. "If the board continues to pray, it will subject the school district to unnecessary liability and potential financial strain."

Forcing people who aren't religious to participate in the prayer ritual can be intimidating, Elliott wrote.

"It is coercive, embarrassing and intimidating for nonreligious citizens to be required to make a public showing of their nonbelief (by not rising or praying) or else to display deference toward a religious sentiment in which they do not believe, but which their school board members clearly do," according to the letters.

The public prayers amount to a governmental endorsement of religion, and 23 percent of Americans identify as nonreligious, according to the letters.

The Harrison and Springdale school boards meet monthly.

Metro on 04/25/2017

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