When 'God' is a bad word at graduation
In 2011, a federal judge threatened high school valedictorian Angela Hildenbrand with jail time if she dared pray at her graduation. Then, in 2013, public school officials turned off valedictorian Remington Reimers microphone mid-sentence when he started talking about his faith during his graduation address. And, just last year, public school officials censored salutatorian Brooks Hambys graduation speech three different times and threatened to cut off his microphone for humbly thanking his parents and God for the gift of learning.
This year, I hope school officials offer more applause about what these high school graduates have to say and less hyperventilating over their religious speech.
Censoring, silencing, threatening with jailare these the lessons of free speech and religious liberty that school officials want to teach graduating high school seniors? Is this how our schools should reward our most academically successful high school graduates? These young people are the cream of the cropliterally, the top of the class! Rarely are they given to foul language, and bawdy humor is foreign to them. These are the students who were more often at desks in their rooms on a Friday night instead of at the football gameand sometimes they were at their desks in their rooms on a Friday night only after cheering their classmates on the gridiron. These are good, smart, humble kids.
For a positive change, let us enjoy the graduation speech for what it is: the time when a few students who have worked themselves into the position of success speak directly to their peers about what is on their hearts while the rest of us respectfully listen.
The problem is not with the students, but rather with misinformed school officials who are allergic to any public expression of religion in school. School officials too often forget the declaration clearly announced by the Supreme Court in its landmark decision nearly 50 years ago in Tinker v. Des Moines: It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/11/when-god-is-bad-word-at-graduation.html?intcmp=ob_homepage_opinion&intcmp=obnetwork
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