Prayer Mural Gets its Day in Court

Lawyers for the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Cranston School District argued their cases in U.S. District Court in Providence yesterday for a hearing on the controversial prayer banner painted on the wall in the auditorium at Cranston High School West.

Within moments of court convening, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald R. Lagueux ordered a recess and everyone in the courtroom took a ride to the school for a viewing of the banner and other exhibits attached to the case.

In the auditorium, Lagueux touched the banner and studied it closely before he chose to sit in a seat to the left of the stage as if he were a student at an assembly. He sat quietly for a few moments before getting up and moving to another chair closer to the banner. The auditorium was dimly lit and numerous light bulbs were burned out — including the one directly above the prayer. Another few moments passed before the judge stood up.

“Alright, I’m all set,” he said.

Back in the courtroom, ACLU lawyer Lynette Labinger began her argument by refuting the school district’s assertion that the banner is an historical work of art by a student and outside the scope of the Establishment Clause.

She noted the banner was installed by a professional hired by the school, and although the district contends a student, David Bradley, composed the text of the prayer, it is remarkably similar to a banner that hung at Hugh B. Bain Middle School, “nearly word for word,” along with images of a bird clutching branches in its talons and an open book and stylized mountains. Both have very similar expressions: “Help us, grant us, teach us.”

“This appears to be a tradition of design in two [separate Cranston schools],” Labinger said. “This is not some student artwork that was painted and installed, it has no fingerprints of student creation.”

The banner at Bain — which has since been removed by school officials, who have not offered an explanation — was installed in the 1920s, Labinger said.

Students recited the Lord’s prayer at the school in the early 60s, Labinger said, as did many schools at the time. When the prayer was written, the school switched to reciting that instead of the Lord’s prayer. At some point before 1963, the recitations stopped. The banner was painted on the auditorium wall some time later.

Labinger said the painting was a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution because it clearly begins with “Our Heavenly Father” and ends with “Amen.”

“This is government speech,” she said. “This is a government prayer. This is not a bulletin board. This is all about religion and keeping it in Cranston schools."

Joseph V. Cavanaugh Jr., lawyer for the school district, countered that the banner is a secular piece of history and “came out of the fabric of the community.”

Nobody is forced to look at it, read it or recite it, Cavanaugh said.

“It’s just a mural on the wall of a school. There is no motive whatsoever,” Cavanaugh said. “Those are religious words but it is permissible under our way of life to have religious words in the context of a high school.”

Cavanaugh said if the wall featured a mural of a Buddhist prayer given to the school as a gift by a graduating class, that would speak to the early traditions of the school community and “what would be wrong with that?” he asked.

“There has to be some breathing room under the establishment clause, or where do we stop?” Cavanaugh asked.

Should we remove “In God we Trust” from our currency? Should we rip all mentions of God from historical documents altogether? What about the Pledge of Allegiance, which is recited in schools across the country every morning, one nation “under God.”

Cavanaugh referred to a Texas case, Van Orden vs. Perry, in which the court allowed a sculpture of the Ten Commandments to remain in a public park. In that case, Justice Stephen Breyer voted with a plurality to allow the sculpture to stay in place partly because of its “secular purpose,” Cavanaugh said and because it was not used for any ceremony or publically-sanctioned religious events.

The question, Cavanaugh said, is whether the banner has an “extensive and predominantly religious purpose,” and he said it does not.

Labinger contended that in the Van Orden case, Justice Breyer acknowledged it was a “borderline case” and said in his plurality decision that the standards when applied to public schools are different. In fact, on the same day, Labinger said, Breyer voted with the majority to strike down a ruling that permitted the display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky clasroom because of that higher standard schools are held to, even after an "explanatory" plaque was posted to suggest the display was historical and not religious.

“Courts have heightened sensitivity for and vigilant enforcement of the principle of neutrality in the constitutionally special context of a public primary and secondary school such as Cranston West,” Labinger said.

Labinger noted that during the lengthy debate at a series of School Committee meeetings that ended with the committee voting to keep the banner in place, numerous members of the public stated the banner should be kept in place because of its religious message. And several School Committee members mentioned their own religious backgrounds and how they agreed with the message conveyed by the banner. Inadvertantly, Labinger said, those officials were endorsing the banner.

School district lawyers argued that the plaintiff, student Jessica Ahlquist, did not have standing to file the complaint. They cited statements she made on social media websites like Facebook and in media interviews that she didn’t find the banner “offensive.”

“She said she’s not offended by it,” Cavanaugh said. “What she is really offended by is that people are adamant about keeping it.”

Cavanaugh suggested Ahlquist is someone trying to make a point and called into question whether she genuinely is offended, feels excluded or ostracized. In court documents, the defense paints a picture of Ahlqusit as someone enjoying “rock star” status in the atheist community.

Labinger said the defense is trying to present Ahlquist as “a professional idiot” but “she is just a kid and unlike some kids, she realized at an early age she didn’t believe in god. She didn’t seek out this issue. From the moment she read the prayer, it took her aback.”

In her court affidavit, Ahlquist said she feels left out and excluded by the prayer. Students are required to attend numerous events in the assembly, so it’s not as if she has a choice about whether she can view it or not.

The reason why Ahlquist said she is not offended by the banner’s words was to try to put a damper on the harassment and bullying she has experienced ever since the suit was filed, Labinger said.

“She has been harassed by her peers in school, on Facebook. She wanted to avoid exclusion, bullying and harassment she felt going forward.”

And in the same interviews cited by the defense, “Ahlquist made it clear that she felt the banner was offensive and discriminatory.”

Cavanaugh said the claim of bullying seems like “an afterthought” by someone who realized she had made a tactical mistake.

But Labinger noted that even before Ahlquist had agreed to become the plaintiff in the case, she wrote an e-mail to a friend that she “planned to do a lot of consideration” before signing on.

“I might be hated by many people across Cranston,” she wrote. “I already feel hate and I’ve always been an outcast, so I have nothing to lose.”

 “She might be a rock star in the atheist community, but she certainly is not in her home community,” Labinger said.

Lagueux commended both sides for their arguments and said he would take the matter under advisement.

“And I’ll write another opinion in my old age,” he said.