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Students stopped from praying during recess sue school district

The “separation of church and state” prevents high school students in Colorado from exercising “religious speech” during their school’s designated free time, according to one principal.

The Alliance Defending Freedom disagrees, and is suing the school district on their behalf.

ChaseWindebankIn a press release Monday, the alliance said the students were told to get their religious jollies before or after school:

For three years, student Chase Windebank met during the free period on Mondays and Fridays with students in an unoccupied choir room to pray, sing Christian songs, and discuss issues of the day from a religious perspective. On Sept. 29, Assistant Principal James Lucas told Windebank that the meetings could continue but any religious speech would have to stop because of the “separation of church and state,” an inaccurate shorthand description of the First Amendment, which actually protects private religious expression.

The attendance at the meetings has dropped from around 90 to “as low as 12” since the school cracked down on free-time prayer, the alliance said.

The school district spurned the alliance’s initial suggestion to leave the students to pray during free time, provoking the suit.

Read the alliance release.

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IMAGE: Pisto Casero/Flickr, Alliance Defending Freedom

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About the Author
Associate Editor
Greg Piper served as associate editor of The College Fix from 2014 to 2021.