DATE: Wednesday, April 30, 1997             TAG: 9704300001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Glenn Allen Scott 

                                            LENGTH:  100 lines

GOD, PRAYER AND RELIGION HAVE NOT BEEN EXPELLED FROM SCHOOLS EDUCATORS' IGNORANCE OF THE LAW AND FEAR OF ACLU LAWSUITS EXPLAIN MORE OFTEN THAN NOT THE CLASHES OVER RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN THE SCHOOLS.

Public-school commencements are coming up soon. Maybe this year no high school valedictorian, salutatorian or other student graduation-ceremony speaker will be told by school board, superintendent or teacher that she or he may not pray openly at the lectern, as happened in Loudoun County a year ago.

If we are fortunate enough to get through the season without a prayer flap, thank President Clinton. Two years ago, he directed Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley to develop and distribute to educators guidelines defining permissible, as well as impermissible, religious expression in public schools.

Clinton said: ``Nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door.

``While the government may not use schools to coerce the consciences of our students, or to convey official endorsement of religion, the public schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day.

``Religion is too important in our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools . . . (I)t shouldn't be demanded, but as long as it is not sponsored by school officials and doesn't interfere with our children's rights, it mustn't be denied.''

A month later, Riley - a former South Carolina governor - mailed guidelines to all of America's school superintendents. The guidelines were developed with advice from, among other groups, the Virginia Beach-based American Center for Law and Justice. The guidance makes clear that prayer and other religious expression have not - repeat, not - been kicked out of the public schools, as many wrongly believe and hustlers of the religious right holler, raising blood pressures and money.

Established by religious-broadcaster Pat Robertson, The American Center for Law and Justice demonstrates repeatedly that it is a highly effective advocate for students and others whose constitutionally protected right to freedom of religious expression is unlawfully denied.

A large measure of credit for the ACLJ's substantial achievements rightfully goes to Jay Alan Sekulow, the organization's chief counsel. Sekulow has won a slew of cases by arguing persuasively in the courts that the First Amendment's freedom-of-speech guarantee covers religious expression no less than secular expression - which it most certainly does.

Sekulow's most recent conspicuous success was the U.S. Supreme Court ruling abolishing the ``bubble zone'' that prevented protestors against abortion demonstrators from close approaches to women and others walking to and from abortion clinics.

The high court upheld provisions that keep anti-abortionists at a fixed distance from abortion clinics themselves, but it also said that barring demonstrators from speaking to people going to and from the clinics infringed protesters' freedom of speech.

Sekulow, a Jewish convert to Christianity, visited The Virginian-Pilot editorial board not long ago. He supports the U.S. Supreme Court rulings banishing officially sponsored prayer and biblical readings from public schools.

But Sekulow is committed to defending the right of the faithful to lawfully exercise their right to express their beliefs in public as well as private.

The ACLJ is the religious right's equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is widely seen as an organization that leans to the secular left, which is what Pat Robertson wanted. Robertson saw need for a litigating organization dedicated to protecting the many whose First Amendment right to religious freedom is wrongfully denied. The need is genuine.

Educators' ignorance of the law and fear of ACLU lawsuits explain more often than not the clashes over religious expression in the schools. Sekulow says that most legitimate complaints about violations of religious freedom in and around schools are resolved quickly, frequently with a telephone call to school officials.

Complaints would plummet if all school boards, school principals and schoolteachers read or were instructed in the guidelines circulated by Education Secretary Riley. Every educator should be given a copy of the guidelines to read and retain for reference. They would then know:

Student religious groups may use school facilities on the same basis that other student groups do.

Student religious groups may worship around the flagpole before or after school hours.

Students ``may express their beliefs about religion in the form of homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free of discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions,'' ``have the right to distribute religious literature to their schoolmates on the same terms as they are permitted to distribute other literature that is unrelated to school curriculum or activities'' and ``may display religious messages on items of clothing to the same extent that they are permitted to display other comparable messages.''

Educators who don't now know what is permitted would learn also that public schools ``may teach about religion, including the Bible or other scripture: the history of religion, comparative religion, the Bible (or other scripture)-as-literature, and the role of religion in the history of the United States and other countries.''

An ACLJ lawsuit led to the Supreme Court ruling that schools that allow their facilities to be used by student groups meeting for any number of purposes may not bar a religious group from doing the same.

Neither God, prayer nor religion has been expelled from public schools, as demagogues and the uninformed insist. The debate over the proper relationship between government and religion would be far less heated, far less bitter if more educators, along with Americans at large, knew that.

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