PICKENS COUNTY

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules in government prayer case

School Board member says ruling means Pickens County policy unconstitutional

Ron Barnett
rbarnett@greenvillenews.com

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Monday that a member of the Pickens County School Board says proves his argument that school board members should be able to offer prayer before meetings without being censored.

The case, which arose from a complaint filed against the Rowan County (NC) Board of Commissioners, involves circumstances similar to Pickens County’s in that board members themselves give the invocation, rather than the board inviting religious leaders to do so.

The majority on the appellate court found that in Rowan County, “The Board’s legislative prayer practice falls within our recognized tradition and does not coerce participation by nonadherents. It is therefore constitutional.”

Alex Saitta, who is running for re-election for the District 3 seat on the Pickens County board, has argued against the board’s policy, which says only “non-sectarian” prayers may be given by board members. Members of the public are free to offer prayers however they wish during a public forum portion of the meetings.

"Clearly the board policy disallowing me to pray in Jesus' name when it is my turn is unconstitutional," Saitta said.

A new state law, signed by Gov. Nikki Haley in June, cites the Supreme Court as saying “a rule that requires prayers to be nonsectarian would force the legislatures and courts to act impermissibly as ‘supervisors and censors of religious speech.’”

The school district’s attorney, Bick Halligan, said he hadn’t read Monday’s ruling and couldn’t comment on it.

“I know that the Pickens Board intends always to comply with state law, and as far as I know it always has and it will continue to do so,” he said.

He said the board will be considering the prayer policy "sometime in the future and I will meet and talk with them when they do.”

Pickens County's current policy was implemented in 2013 after the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a national nonprofit that promotes separation of church and state, sent a letter to the board describing its practice of allowing students to deliver the invocation as “a serious constitutional violation.”

Student prayers often were offered in the name of Jesus and reflected a particularly Christian theological perspective.

In March 2015, the board considered a policy based on the Town of Greece case which would have allowed sectarian invocations to be offered by local religious leaders on a rotating basis.

But it failed on a tie vote, leaving the current policy in place.

South Carolina, which is part of the Fourth Circuit, submitted a brief supporting Rowan County, as did 12 other states and several members of Congress.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and seven other organizations, including three Jewish groups, supported the plaintiffs in the case.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote a dissenting opinion in the Fourth Circuit ruling, finding that the circumstances in the Town of Greece case were different from those in Rowan County, in that in Rowan County elected officials themselves were offering prayers while guest ministers were brought in to deliver the invocations in Greece.

“The prayers (in Rowan County), bordering at times on exhortation or proselytization, were uniformly sectarian, referencing one and only one faith though law by definition binds us all,” he wrote. “I have seen nothing like it.”

Court news