FFRF sends three letters to Rusk ISD to stop student led prayers

RUSK, Texas ( KETK ) – Over the past seven months, the Wisconsin-based “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) sent three letters to Rusk ISD, asking the district to stop their student-led prayers before football games, claiming they are unconstitutional.

FFRF is a national non-profit that advocates for atheists, agnostics, and non-theists. However, the district’s superintendent said no laws are being broken.

The FFRF said they were contacted by two Rusk community members, filing complaints about the student-led prayers before district football games.

“It violates the first amendment, even if a student is the one delivering the prayer, it still violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment,” Sammi Lawrence, Freedom From Religion Foundation legal fellow, said.

The Rusk ISD superintendent, Grey Burton, recently posted to his personal Facebook page addressing the foundation’s request.

The post read, “If we want America to be great again then we can’t let groups or individuals continue removing God and Jesus from the fabric of our society.” The post went on to say “We want protections and blessings for our students, staff and community.”

Burton spoke to KETK and said a student approached school leaders about wanting to lead a prayer before football games.

“We had made a decision about three years ago. I mean, a lot of folks in the community would like for us to start praying or allowing students to pray before games instead of having a moment of silence and so, you know, we can look back on than what the law allowed and decide we would like to make that a possibility,” Grey Burton, Rusk ISD superintendent, said.

Rusk ISD said the district is in compliance under Texas Education Code 25.156 as well as school policy which gives students the right to voluntarily pray or meditate during any school activity.

UT Tyler political science professor, Eric Lopez said there is a fine line when it comes to prayer in school.

“When you look at Texas law and you look at Federal law or how the constitution has been interpreted, you know, as long as the government in a public school is not leading composing the prayer. They have to have access to allow them to freely exercise their faith as well,” Lopez said.

However, the foundation believes there’s no room for prayer from ​any religion in public schools.

“You end up in a situation where maybe someone wants to lead a Christian prayer, but then you also would have to allow the Satanist prayer,” Lawrence said.

Burton said any student can ask to lead a prayer no matter the religion.

“We don’t ever tell the student what they can say, what they can’t say. We don’t ask them ‘what religion are you coming from?’ It is truly, do you know one of the things that they were accusing of is writing a script for the student in the prayer book,” Burton said.

The foundation said Burton responded to them with a letter and said that prayer before football games won’t stop and neither will their protections under the first amendment.

Burton’s Facebook post is no longer visible to the public.

Meanwhile the foundation said they won’t comment about their next possible move, if any.

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