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  • 2015-08-25 (xsd:date)
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  • Was a High School Band Ordered to Stop Performing 'How Great Thou Art'? (en)
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  • On 21 August 2015, Fox News columnist Todd Starnes published an article titled School Band Told to Stop Performing 'How Great Thou Art.' Starnes' opinion piece drew national attention to a debate initially localized to Brandon, Mississippi, over the mixing of prayer and other religious elements with school events: Starnes' take on the events at Brandon High School was largely accurate, although typically one-sided and exaggerated. The portion about a lone voice singing a forbidden song, for example, was misleading since spectators were not in any way prohibited by court order from singing hymns or engaging in other religious speech (nor had a judge specifically enjoined the band from performing How Great Thou Art). Soon after Starnes' column appeared, social media rumors circulated claiming that a federal judge (appointed by President Obama) forbade the Brandon High School marching band from including the hymn How Great Thou Art from their halftime show. But that condensed version of events didn't correctly sum up precisely what was going on in Brandon. First, it's true that U.S. District Court Judge Carlton Reeves was appointed by President Obama in April 2010. It's also true that Reeves issued a ruling in July 2015 in which he found the school district to be in violation of an earlier agreement pertaining to prayer in schools. As the Clarion Ledger reported on 22 August 2015, the school board (and not Reeves) made the decision to eliminate How Great Thou Art from the halftime show, and that decision was made by the district in order to comply with previous court rulings that pertained to a 2013 lawsuit brought by a Northwest Rankin High School student: As the article excerpted above clearly indicated, the district (not Judge Reeves) opted to pull a Christian hymn (How Great Thou Art) from a school-related event due to previous incidents during which they were found to be in violation of extant court orders. A statement from the school issued on 21 August 2015 quoted the court order in question: Notably, administrators, teachers and staff of the Rankin County School District were specifically mentioned in the Federal court order. (Parents, students, and spectators were not bound by it, and thus did not engage in singing a forbidden song during the halftime show, a pervasive misconception that conflates the right to impose prayer with a right to voluntary prayer.) That inaccurate interpretation appeared to be widespread among persons affiliated with the school: Although Judge Reeves issued a ruling permanently enjoining school district staff from endorsing the practices of any specific religion in the course of school activities, the school district decided to remove How Great Thou Art from their halftime lineup on their own after having been found in violation of a previous agreement to cease including religious material in school-sponsored events. (en)
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