chool to allow students to vote whether to include such a forum for student speech during the graduation ceremony. Again, there is a risk to such an approach. By creating a forum for student speech, the school may be stuck with most anything the student wishes to say. While the school would not be required to allow speech that was profane, sexually explicit, defamatory or disruptive, the speech could include political or religious views offensive to many, as well as speech critical of school officials. A far better approach to the graduation prayer dilemma would seem to be a privately sponsored, voluntarily attended baccalaureate service held after school hours, perhaps at a local church. The school can announce the event and even allow it to be held on campus if other community groups are given similar privileges. In fact, the school is prohibited from discriminating against religious groups in the after-hours use of its facilities. Schools may not, however, sponsor such religious exercises. If a school board continues to insist on some accommodation of religion at the graduation exercise, a genuinely neutral moment of silence might be considered. Although the school prayer debate has caused much confusion for teachers, administrators and board members, most questions are easily resolved if the school will keep in mind the distinction between government (in this case "school") speech endorsing religion which the Establishment clause prohibits and private (in this case "student") speech endorsing religion which the Free Speech and Free Exercise clauses protect. Distribution of Religious Literature An increasing number of students are requesting permission to distribute fliers and religious literature on public school campuses. This distribution of nonschool publications is not a new phenomenon but was common during the Vietnam War. Nevertheless, many schools are uncertain about the proper response to such requests, especially when the s...
