Public high school officials in Ohio exercised sound judgment when they prohibited a Christian band from headlining a school-organized assembly.
Not surprisingly, a Religious Right legal outfit attacked that judgment as being hostile to religion. The Rutherford Institute represented the student musical band, called Pawn, in a federal lawsuit against the Rossford Exempted Village School District. Rutherford attorneys argued that school officials had violated the band’s constitutional rights and discriminated against it because of its religious beliefs.
A federal judge disagreed. Last week, U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary dismissed the lawsuit and sided with public school officials.
“This is not a case about the state discriminating against speech and religion, but rather about the state having control over who speaks on its behalf,” wrote Zouhary in Golden v. Rossford Exempted Village School District.
In late 2004, members of Pawn asked Rossford Principal Ronald Grimm whether they could perform at a future school-wide assembly. David Kleeberger, a school board member and father of one of the band members, also sent an e-mail to the Rossford Supt. Luci Gernot asking whether it would be permissible for the religious group to perform. In his e-mail, Kleeberger assured the superintendent that the band would “not need to talk about Christ openly, however the lyrics do contain references to Christ.”
The Dec. 21 assembly was set to occur during the school day and was to be supervised by faculty and staff. According to court records, students not interested in attending the event, which at the last moment was dubbed an anti-drug rally, were to be sent to the school cafeteria.
Supt. Gernot initially told the Pawn manager that the band could perform, but she later asked the school district’s attorney to investigate the situation. A parent had called Grimm with concerns about the band’s performance.
After studying the situation, the district’s attorney informed the superintendent that Pawn’s performance should be cancelled. According to Pawn’s Web site, its purpose is to “spread the word of God to those who do not know him, and in doing so, give people the love of Christ.” The Web site, Judge Zouhary noted, also stated that “All of the band’s music has a Christian message” and that some of the group’s members “have made it clear that the music’s first purpose is to deliver a message.”
At a school board meeting days before the school assembly, Supt.Gernot announced that Pawn would not be permitted to perform. Gernot, however, suggested that the school board might consider allowing the group to perform in “an after-school setting, rather than at an in-school assembly.”
Kleeberger was not thrilled by Gernot’s action and asked her during the school board meeting to debate the issue with him on Fox News. According to court documentation, Kleeberger told Gernot that the debate would provide them both with the chance to “bring religion back into the schools.”
At trial, Rutherford Institute lawyers argued that the assembly at Rossford was a public forum at which public school officials were duty bound to allow the Christian band to perform. The cancellation of the scheduled performance violated band members’ free speech rights, Rutherford argued. Moreover, as is typical for Rutherford, its lawyers argued that public school officials had acted with hostility toward Christianity.
Zouhary concluded that Rutherford attorneys totally missed the mark.
According to the judge, the Rossford High assembly was never set up to be a wide open public forum. The bottom line, Zouhary explained, was that the public school does not need “to lend out its microphone to let private actors espouse their own views….”
Moreover, Zouhary wrote that Rossford High School officials also had a duty to ensure that the assembly did not come off as a school-sanctioned religious gathering. The public school officials were entitled to bar Pawn’s appearance at the assembly because of the band’s “Christian religious identity precisely because the assembly audience might associate that identity with the School, School District, and School Board.”
Pawn, as the judge noted, is “an avowedly Christian band whose musical lyrics reflect that religious tradition,” and school officials therefore had enough reason to bar the performance at a school-organized event. Citing federal court precedent, Zouhary stated that there was a “realistic danger that the community would think that” the school district “was endorsing religion….”
The Rutherford Institute, like many Religious Right entities, is bent on pushing public schools to advance the agenda of the religious majority. For the Religious Right, the public schools are places that should cater to the majority. That’s why, despite a sound ruling from a federal court, the Rutherford Institute has announced it is preparing an appeal.
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