c. 1998 Religion News Service

Court rules graduation prayers may be allowed

(RNS) Student-led high school graduation prayers may be allowed when they are conducted without school district control, a San Francisco federal appeals court said Wednesday (May 27).

The ruling, which affects nine Western states, was issued by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and upholds a rural Idaho school district’s policy permitting top students to include prayer in their graduation speeches.

The ruling stressed the policy of Madison School District No. 321 allowed prayer but neither required nor controlled it, the Associated Press reported. “By allowing any speech the student chooses, the policy neither advances nor inhibits religion,”Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain said in the 3-0 decision.

Stephen Pevar, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which sued to halt the practice, said graduation ceremonies in the Idaho school district, which is 90 percent Mormon, almost always included prayers.

He argued that his non-Mormon clients”feel like outcasts”at the graduation ceremonies. A mother of non-Mormon students challenged the policy using the name Jane Doe because she reportedly feared retaliation.

The appeals court ruling upheld U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge’s August 1997 decision.

Pevar said no decision has been made yet on further appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court has barred compulsory prayer in public schools since 1962, and ruled in 1992 that public schools could not require prayers at graduation ceremonies.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the Pat Robertson-affiliated American Center for Law and Justice in Virginia Beach, Va., said,”It is encouraging to see a federal appeals court stand in support of a student’s free speech rights at graduation.”

Southern Baptist college settles suit after charges of misappropriation

(RNS) A Southern Baptist college in Georgia has agreed to an out-of-court settlement after being charged with misappropriating financial aid grants.

Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Ga., will pay the federal government a total of $4 million, with a payment of half that sum due within 30 days of the settlement, which was reached May 18.

The school must pay the rest of the settlement in eight quarterly payments of $250,000 plus interest.

Under the agreement, the school also must create a corporate integrity program involving student aid programs and receive semi-annual reviews of its compliance through the end of 1999, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

If the compliance reviews reveal no serious problems, the college will once again have advance payment status for federal funds.

The crisis began last year when the federal government joined a lawsuit filed by Martha Faw, the school’s former assistant financial aid director.

The suit alleged that money was inappropriately given to unqualified students and that school officials ignored Faw when she asked them to correct the problems.

Faw was awarded $140,000 from the settlement of a wrongful termination suit with the school and is expected to receive more than that sum as the”whistle blower”in the suit joined by the federal officials. She told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she planned to donate more than $200,000 to create a scholarship fund.

The school’s former president, Y. Lynn Holmes, announced his resignation in November and said then that it was”in the best interest of the college for me to step aside at this time.” Trustees, promising to resolve the crisis, immediately named former president W. Starr Miller as interim president.

On June 1, David R. Smith, the school’s new president, will begin leading the college. He previously was vice president for institutional advancement at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas.

Smith said he was pleased a settlement had been reached.”Their efforts allow me to assume my responsibility with the cloud of uncertainty lifted,”he said.

Americans giving more to charity

(RNS) Americans gave 7.5 percent more money to charity in 1997 than they did in 1996, according to Giving USA, an report issued by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel Trust for Philanthropy (AAFRCTP).

The increase was the largest since 1989.

Individuals, foundations and corporations combined to give a total of $143.46 billion in 1997 to a wide range of nonprofit groups. Individuals accounted for just over three-quarters of the total.

Increased confidence in charities influenced the upsurge in public giving, said Nancy Raybin, AAFRCTP chair. Last year, she said,”a veil of cynicism that shrouded American charities lifted”_ a reference to financial scandals in recent years at United Way, the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy and other charities.

New laws require non-profits to provide copies of their tax forms to any individual.

Giving in 1997 increased the most _ 15 percent _ for international organizations. The only charities that saw a decrease were those that deal with the arts. Those groups experienced a 2.8 percent drop.

Anne E. Kaplan, editor of Giving USA, noted that giving to arts organizations was unusually high in 1996.

Growth of non-traditional families slows dramatically

(RNS) The rapid growth of non-traditional families has slowed dramatically, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday (May 27).

Between 1970 and 1990, the proportion of American households that had a married couple with children declined sharply from 40 percent to 26 percent.

However, between 1990 and 1997 the proportion declined only an additional 1 percent. “It hasn’t quite turned around, but it has slowed, and that is significant, given the breakneck speed at which we were seeing these changes,”Census Bureau demographer Lynne Casper Hayden told the Washington Post.

Hayden and Ken Bryson, who together authored the Census Bureau report, cited a drop in teen birth rates and in births to unmarried mothers as a prime reason for the slowing.

The divorce rate has leveled off as well. The Census Bureau now projects that four of every ten new marriages will end in divorce, instead of the previous figure of five in ten.

The authors drew no conclusions about social factors that have prompted the changes. However, sociologists have noted that aging baby boomers and a concurrent emphasis on family values has generally shifted American culture toward a more traditional path.

Quote of the day: Islamic studies professor Mustansir Mir

(RNS)”Whether one likes it or not, the West has today become the industry standard with reference to which all non-Western cultures must define their position on major philosophical and practical issues. In other words, the non-West must engage in a dialogue with the West.”On the Muslim side, it is the Muslims living in the West who are in the best position to engage in such a dialogue. Academic and intellectual progress made by Muslims in the West can be used as a catalyst for introducing positive changes in the Muslim world.” _ Mustansir Mir, professor of Islamic studes at Youngstown State University, writing in the March/April edition of the journal Islamic Horizons.

IR END RNS