Lawsuits against SYATP.

[Ed Brayton]

Brad Pardee wrote:

> Ed,
>  
> You wrote, "And if, as you say, most of those situations are cleared 
> up by a letter explaining the law, is it really an attempt to 
> suppress, or is it merely ignorance of the law? Seems the latter would 
> be a far more reasonable description of what is going on."
>  
> Certainly there are some who are ignorant of the law and simply 
> require the explanation.  But what I've seen as I've tried to follow 
> news stories like this over the years is that it's just as certain 
> that there are those administrators who are hostile to things such as 
> See You At The Pole, and for those individuals, they're working on the 
> assumption that people won't fight an authority figure on the point.  
> In those cases, the letter doesn't merely serve as an explanation of 
> the law.  It also serves notice that their bluff is being called, and 
> so they back down, knowing that they would lose.
>  
> While it's uncharitable to assume that all of these situations are the 
> result of animus against such events, it's equally naive to assume 
> that none of these situations are merely harmless, well-intentioned 
> ignorance.

I'm sure you're correct that there are a few such people out there; 
there is no position so dumb that you can't find at least a few people 
who would take it. But it seems to me that the statement I quoted is 
still rhetorical overkill. The acceptance of this event as 
constitutional is about as universal as it gets in this area of the law. 
Even groups like the ACLU and Americans United, groups that are 
regularly accused by the ADF of trying to drive all religion out of the 
public square, are in complete agreement that SYATP is constitutional. 
Aside from an occasional misguided school administrator (we've got, 
what, half a dozen, maybe a dozen, cases out of the thousands of schools 
where this event takes place every year?), whose decisions are easily 
changed by a letter explaining the law, no one has ever tried to stop 
the event from taking place. And there certainly hasn't been any 
"constitutional showdown" over it because there is all but universal 
agreement on the legal question. There are lots of areas of church/state 
law, like prayer at graduation ceremonies, where there is vast 
disagreement over what should and should not be allowed to take place. 
But here there is almost unanimous agreement that this event can take 
place. It just seems like the kind of overheated rhetoric that is far 
too common in this area. I think it lends far more heat than light.

Ed Brayton
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