NEW: ACLU Continues Battle in Cranston Prayer Banner Case

NEW: ACLU Continues Battle in Cranston Prayer Banner Case

The Rhode Island ACLU has added to the continuing battle over Cranston West High School's controversial prayer banner by asking a federal judge to preliminarily enjoin the City of Cranston from continuing to display the mural addressed to “Our HeavenlyFather” that is painted on an auditorium wall. The request for interim relief, would be pending pending a final decision in the www.riaclu.orghttp://www.riaclu.org, filed in April, on behalf of Jessica Ahlquist, a sophomore at the school, who has been a vocal opponent of the prayer display.

In a 37-page memo accompanying the request, the ACLU brief notes that whenever Jessica “is required to attend an assembly in the auditorium, or when she chooses to attend extracurricular events, she is exposed to this prominent and large display. She has felt isolated, ostracized and devalued by her school and community because of the School Prayer.” In an affidavit accompanying the memo, Jessica describes how isolated she felt being in the auditorium for a mandatory school program last month where guest speaker Mayor Allan Fung offered his view, to loud applause, that the prayer should remain in the auditorium.

ACLU Cites U.S. Supreme Court Decision

The brief cites from the U.S. Supreme Court‟s decision in another Rhode Island school prayer case, Lee v. Weisman, that “school sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. 'School prayers,' whether recited, or silently but prominently displayed by the government on school property in school locations where students are required to be, violate this core First Amendment principle.”

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Last July, after learning of the prayer mural, the ACLU wrote to school officials asking that it be removed. By a 4-3 vote in March, however, the school committee decided to keep the prayer, ignoring warnings about the cost of litigation and despite the school district's ongoing and severe budgetary problems.

The suit notes that a number of speakers at public hearings identified the prayer‟s religious message as the reason for urging the school committee to maintain it, and also expressed anger and outrage at people like Jessica who questioned the prayer‟s display.

The U.S. Supreme Court first ruled government-sponsored prayer in the public schools unconstitutional in 1962. Thirty years later, in the Lee v. Weisman case, the Supreme Court also ruled unconstitutional the recitation of prayers at public school graduation ceremonies. 

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