Source: Deseret News
On May 10, 2003 Deseret News reported that "for the record, the student's... public prayer at a high school graduation... could be legal... But only within a slim set of legal standards... And that has some Utah school bosses, faced with balancing freedom of and freedom from religion, wishing graduation prayers would simply disappear. That's even though the U.S. Department of Education is offering specific guidance on how to allow such speech under the No Child Left Behind Act... The Supreme Court has struck down school-sponsored graduation prayer. But it also has allowed spontaneous, student-initiated commencement prayers, so long as the administration had nothing to do with them... But what remains at issue is the idea of prayer before a captive school audience, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar over Religious Freedom Programs at the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., whose citizenship-based program, the Three R's Project (Rights, Responsibilities and Respect), is used in some Utah schools."