UPDATE 2: The Providence Journal reported yesterday that the mural has been covered with a tarp and that the auditorium has been locked and will remain so until students return to school on Tuesday.
UPDATE: The Providence Journal reported Wednesday evening that an appeal is unlikely. The school committee meets on Tuesday, and the mural may be taken down next week.
By Linda Felaco
After flying under the radar for nearly 50 years following
the Supreme Court’s landmark 1962 ruling that school prayer is
unconstitutional, the
prayer mural that has graced the auditorium wall of Cranston High School West
since 1963 must be removed per the order of U.S. District Judge Ronald R. Lagueux.
Regular readers of Progressive Charlestown no doubt recall
that I wrote
several times about the
case and my belief that the
prayer was innocuous enough that even I as an atheist could tolerate it and saw
no reason why it had to come down. No one had ever been required to recite
the prayer when I attended the school, and my own mother, who taught there
during the years when the banner was first installed, does not recall prayers
being recited then either, just the moment of silence that was initiated after
the 1962 Supreme Court ruling.
Unfortunately, the Cranston School Committee was probably its
own worst enemy in this case. By arguing for keeping the mural up on religious
grounds, they only served to prove why it had to come down and was
constitutionally indefensible. And now Judge Lagueux has persuaded me of that
as well. His summation of his decision might well have been addressed to me. Read it after the jump.
“There goes many a ship to sea...”
It remains for this Court to attempt to soothe those who may
believe that this decision represents a harsh result over a minor
Constitutional infraction. The Supreme Court offers two pertinent lessons.
First, the Supreme Court urges us to remember that “insistence upon neutrality,
vital as it surely is for untrammeled religious liberty, may appear to border
upon religious hostility. But in the long view the independence of both church
and state in their respective spheres will be better served by close adherence
to the neutrality principle.” Schempp, 374 U.S. at 246. 83 S.Ct. at 1584.
Second, later in the same opinion, the Supreme Court addresses the circumstance
in Engel, where, as here, the complaints of a few overcame the beliefs and
desires of the majority: “Nor did it matter that few children had complained of
the practice, for the measure of the seriousness of a breach of the
Establishment Clause has never been thought to be the number of people who
complain of it.” Id. at 264, 83 S.Ct. at 1594. Plaintiff is clearly an
articulate and courageous young woman, who took a brave stand, particularly in
light of the hostile response she has received from her community.
Over the many years of its history, the Supreme Court has
turned to the words of the Founding Fathers and the framers of the Constitution
to support varying interpretations of the Establishment Clause. Many chapters
have been devoted to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington and
even Abraham Lincoln, and what their expectations were for the public religious
practices of this nation. This Court has tried to resist the temptation of
injecting lofty rhetoric into this opinion, but nonetheless was moved by the
words, as quoted in Schempp, of Roger Williams, the founder of our state, who
left the Massachusetts Bay Colony in pursuit of religious liberty.
There goes many a ship to sea, with
many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true
picture of a commonwealth, or human combination, or society. It hath fallen out
sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked
on one ship; upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience I
ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists,
Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship’s prayers or worship,
nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice
any.
Conclusion
For all these reasons, this Court grants Plaintiff’s motion
for a mandatory permanent injunction, and orders the immediate removal of the
School Prayer mural from Cranston High School West. The Plaintiff, as the
prevailing party, is given twenty days from the date hereof to file for counsel
fees and costs. Defendants shall have ten days after Plaintiff’s filing to
respond. This Court will enter judgment after these issues are resolved. It is
so ordered.
/s/Ronald R. Lagueux________________________
Ronald R. Lagueux
Senior United States District Judge
January 11, 2012
[Read the complete decision here.]