(202) 466-3234 (202) 898-0955 (fax) www.au.org 1301 K Street, NW Suite 850, East Tower Washington, DC 20005 October 17, 2012 By Email Charles W. Cagle Lewis, King, Krieg & Waldrop, P.C. 424 Church Street, Suite 2500 Nashville, TN 37219 ccagle@lewisking.com Re: Prayer at Lenoir City School-Board Meetings Dear Mr. Cagle: Last spring, we wrote to Lenoir City Schools and raised several concerns about the impermissible promotion of religion by the school district; our concerns included the Board of Education's practice of beginning meetings with prayers. In your April 4, 2012 response, you stated that "the board and the school system do understand the significance of the allegations and will proceed to address these issues quickly and directly with those to whom we do owe a duty." Later news reports suggested that the Board had decided to replace its prayers with a moment of silence. See Hugh G. Willett, Lenoir City Schools Ready to Spend More Time on Education, Less on Controversies, KnoxNews (Aug. 5, 2012), http:// www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/aug/05/lenoir-city-schools-ready-to-spend-moretime-on/. It appears, however, that the Board has in fact continued to present prayers at its meetings. At several recent Board meetings, a local pastor stood, asked for and received permission from the Board to deliver a prayer, and then prayed--"in Jesus' name"--just before the Board meeting began. The Board did not rule the speaker out of order or otherwise make any effort to stop him. The video at the following link illustrates these events at one recent meeting: http://www.you tube.com/watch?v=DBoFxtN0UQc; a video of the pastor's full remarks is available at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ix0AyeYaac. The Board may not evade its constitutional obligations through artifice. Just as Board members themselves may not deliver prayers at these meetings, Coles ex rel. Coles v. Cleveland Bd. of Educ., 171 F.3d 369, 386 (6th Cir. 1999), they also may not invite or acquiesce in the delivery of opening prayers by others. For example, in Joyner v. Forsyth County, 653 F.3d 341 (4th Cir. 2011), a county board that had been inviting speakers to deliver Christian prayers removed the prayers from its agenda--"so that it may be clear the prayer is not considered part of the public business"--but the prayers continued to take place just before the meeting began. Id. at 344. The Court of Appeals was not fooled: despite the county's attempt to make the prayers unofficial, one "cannot turn a blind eye to the practical effects of the invocations," as "citizens attending Board meetings hear the prayers, not the policy." Id. at 354. Here, the circumstances likewise reflect the Board's ongoing endorsement of religion. After purporting to stop beginning its meetings with prayer, the Board has repeatedly allowed a pastor to deliver a Christian prayer immediately before the beginning of these meetings. In these circumstances, "[n]o reasonable observer could swallow the claim" that the Board has not encouraged or otherwise endorsed this practice. McCreary Cnty. v. ACLU, 545 U.S. 844, 872 (2005). Rather, "[i]f the [reasonable] observer had not thrown up his hands, he would probably suspect that the [Board was] simply reaching for any way" to continue its unlawful practice--even though the Board is "constitutionally required to embody religious neutrality." Id. at 873. Please ensure that future meetings do not feature prayers or other religious content, and please provide us with a response to this letter within thirty days. We can assure you that the Board's previous insistence that its promotion of religion is a purely internal matter, see April 4, 2012 Letter at 1, will not make this issue go away. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this issue further, please contact Benjamin Hazelwood at (202) 466-3234 or hazelwood@au.org. Sincerely, Ayesha N. Khan, Legal Director Gregory M. Lipper, Senior Litigation Counsel Benjamin N. Hazelwood, Madison Fellow 2