Divided Rutherford school board reinstates meeting prayer 'for some divine guidance'

Yahoo

27-03-2025

The Rutherford County Board of Education will start meetings with prayer instead of moments of silence, the majority recently decided.
Board member Caleb Tidwell called for the 5-2 vote March 20 to allow for a short prayer and "ask for some divine guidance at the beginning," which was practiced at meetings in prior decades by elected school officials.
Board member Stan Vaught opposed Tidwell's motion, which was proposed near the end of the meeting and excluded from the agenda.
Vaught said he was concerned the district could face expensive First Amendment challenges for bringing back prayer at board meetings, "if it went all the way to the Supreme Court.
"You're asking for trouble," he told Tidwell and the others in the majority. "You're asking for the taxpayers of this county to bail us out."
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Prior to the March 20 vote, Board attorney Jeff Reed estimated that school officials could spend more than $1 million in legal costs to defend a lawsuit all the way through to the nation's top court.
In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court in Engel v. Vital ruled that public school prayers provided to all students in a classroom or campus violated the establishment clauses of the First Amendment, according to a webpage from the national Free Speech Center based at Middle Tennessee State University.
Reed previously told The Daily News Journal that school board meetings are expected to follow the same public school requirements by offering no official prayers, based on a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which has jurisdiction over parts of Tennessee, including Rutherford County.
"Given recent Supreme Court rulings, the courts could view the case different than previously," Reed said.
Courts have permitted legislative bodies such as the state legislature and Rutherford County Commission to open meetings with prayer, Reed said.
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Tidwell's motion for prayer had support from Butch Vaughn, Katie Darby, Tammy Sharp and vice chairwoman Frances Rosales.
Chairwoman Claire Maxwell joined Vaught in opposing.
Vaughn, who seconded the motion to approve, suggested there are "lots of kids who want to pray with us."
He also asked why the school board had to give up prayer at meetings in the first place.
"I'm ready to fight," he said. "The structure of our country is based on that. I'd just like to get it back myself."
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As part of his argument, Vaught said he'd rather observe moments of silence so each board member, district employee, person in the sometimes 150-plus strong audience and everyone watching the video-recorded meetings can send up his or her own prayer.
"You're infringing on other people's liberty by doing this," Vaught told the majority. "I don't know if you're thinking about that or not, but we have to protect everybody's liberty: right, wrong, black, white, pink, purple, polka dot, Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu."
Vaught also pointed out how the district has 52 different languages spoken by students and employees at Smyrna High School, alone. He noted that Rutherford County Schools is home to several different religions observed among its 52,000 students and 7,000 employees.
Before the board's vote, Darby convinced a majority to amend the motion to include a statement making it clear that elected school officials are "not asking anyone to pray with us" and that audience members can step out of the meeting room if they "don't want to join in prayer."
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After the meeting, Vaught told The Daily News Journal he'd received praise for his stance on the prayer issue from Nashville's Rae Levine.
"As a Jew in TN and especially, a retired MNPS (Metro Nashville Public Schools) teacher, reading Stan's words, renews my faith and hope for Tennessee," Levine said in a letter to the editor in The Tennessean. "Our Constitution, the supreme law of the land, is being trampled upon by Trump and his legion, by Governor Lee, and TN GOP legislators, by school board members all over our state, as separation of church and state has become a 'woke' thing, which is unfathomable."
Prior to the meeting and subsequent prayer vote, Vaught, who attends First Baptist Church on East Main Street in downtown Murfreesboro, offered to meet in prayer with elected school officials.
"We can pray right there, right then, before the meeting starts," he said.
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This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Tennessee school board to reinstate meeting prayers after split vote