Prayer, Community and Outsiders

[Mark Graber]

May I suggest a variation on themes raised by those of us whoa re
troubled by student led prayer at graduation (as opposed to student
references to God or religious scripture, which have their own
problems, but somewhat different ones).  A graduation exercise is a
significant communal affair, one that defines communal values.
Sometimes, as in the case of the one I just attended, speakers
attempt to achieve community through banality, through a repetition
of cliches hopefully will not offend anyone (except, of course, those
of us who are offended by such banality).  Most communities do,
however, give graduation speakers, students or invited dignitaries,
the right to attempt to create community.  When this happens, many
people in the audience will feel like outsiders.  Ringing
denunciations of the Vietnam War, for example, no doubt cause
feelings of offense and outsiderness in students, parents and guests
who were for that affair.  Nevertheless, the constitution, at least
as I read it, permits public officials or their surrogates to define
public communities in terms of certain secular values (interesting
question to Sandy Levinson and others who participated in the
constitutional stupidities project.  I assume a ringing attack on the
electoral college would be a legitimate commencement speech--i.e.,
"how can we proclaim ourselves a democracy when . . ."  What about a
ringing attack on the substance of theThirteenth Amendment).  What
the constitution forbids, in my view, is any effort by public
officials or their surrogates to define a public community in terms
of religious values.  From my perspective, anyone who at a graduation
asks the audience to join him or her in a prayer (as opposed, I
should emphasize to a momemt of silence) is seeking to define a
public community in terms of religious values, and hence, is
violating the First Amendment.  This ban on prayer may make people
who would like prayer feel like outsiders, but this in my judgment is
because the present constitution declares that people who want to
define public communities in terms of religious values are outsiders.

Mark A. Graber
mgraber at bss2.umd.edu