A Greenwood High School honor student who learned in class about court rulings striking down school prayer has found a real-world application -- his own graduation ceremony.
Eric Workman's lawsuit, filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, challenges the high school's practice of allowing seniors to vote on whether to have a student-led prayer at graduation.
ACLU attorney Ken Falk said allowing the vote and even having the prayer run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found prayers at public school-sponsored events to violate the First Amendment.
"This is particularly egregious when it's coming from a student who's going to be sitting on the stage," Falk said.
Workman, 18, is ranked first in his class, the lawsuit says. He declined to be interviewed, but Falk said Workman approached the ACLU because he found the practice troubling in light of what he's learned in government classes.
Greenwood Schools Superintendent David Edds said a student-approved prayer has been a long-standing feature at graduation.
Controversy over school prayer has faded from the forefront since the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in 2000 that a Texas high school could not allow students to deliver prayers over the public address system at football games.
Eight years earlier, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision that a public school could not offer a prayer at graduation. ...
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