School prayer focus of 1st House bill filed this year

A state representative has filed legislation that would require schools to allow student religious expression, but at least one group is questioning the need for it.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, is the first House bill filed for the 2015 Regular Session of the Legislature, which begins in March. Butler’s bill would require school districts to allow students to pray and express religious feelings, whether in groups, in homework or art projects, or through clothing.

“Students in public schools may pray or engage in religious activities or religious expression before, during, and after the school day in the same manner and to the same extent that students may engage in nonreligious activities or expression,” the bill states.

Butler, a former member of the Etowah County Board of Education, said in a phone interview Tuesday he wanted to clarify existing law for educators.

“I want the school boards to set up policy, then everybody should know and be aware of it, that the students have their rights,” he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down officially-sanctioned school prayer and Bible readings in two separate decisions in the early 1960s. However, student-led religious activities are permitted, so long as they are not disruptive to the learning environment.

“Students can do that; teachers can not,” said Susan Watson, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama. “Teachers can be a monitor or be in the room and keep order, but they can not participate in religious clubs.”

Watson called the bill a “perennial,” and suggested it would be redundant. In 2000, then-Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor sent a memorandum to state superintendents, saying that student-initiated displays of religious expression were permissable, so long as there was no official sanction. The memorandum is used as the official policy on religious expression by the Alabama State Department of Education.

“School officials (e.g. coaches) should neither encourage nor discourage individual or group prayer,” the memorandum stated. “Organization or direction of a prayer by a school official would not be appropriate; this also means that school officials should not hold a student election for the purpose of choosing a student to give a prayer at a school-sponsored event.”

The memo covers much of the territory in Butler’s bill. In some places, lanugage in Butler’s bill sounds nearly indentical to the Pryor memo, such as the section permitting students to wear religious attire “to the extent that they may display comparable nonreligious messages or symbols on items of clothing.”

Still, Butler said he had spoken with teachers who were “scared to death” of making any mention of religion in class, and said his legislation would clarify the matter for them.

“This bill says you can use religious expression in coursework,” he said. “You can write about any Biblical character.”

Butler introduced the bill in the 2013 and 2014 legislative sessions. The legislation did not make it to the floor of the House for a vote in either year.