Court Bars Connecticut Schools From Holding Graduation in a Church

June 28, 2010 — -- After months of controversy and a cantankerous legal battle that's still raging, seniors at Enfield and Enrico Fermi High Schools in Enfield, Connecticut, finally graduated last week on the grounds of their schools instead of inside a local church.

Both high schools had planned to hold their graduations at the nearby First Cathedral Church in Bloomfield, as they had for the past two or three years.

But last fall, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit, nonsectarian organization that promotes freedom of religion, put a stop to those plans.

The groups sent a letter to the Enfield Board of Education, threatening to sue if the schools did not move the ceremonies from First Cathedral.

"We were approached by several students in fall 2009, who were upset with ... a public school holding a graduation ceremony in a church," Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of Connecticut, told ABCNews.com.

Four other schools in different Connecticut school districts that had also planned to hold their graduations at First Cathedral also received similar letters, and all six schools, including the two in Enfield, agreed to find different venues.

Upon learning of this decision, community members who wanted the graduation to be held indoors complained to the Board of Education, and a month later the board rescinded its initial vote and began investigating other options. After receiving input from the community and lobbying from the Family Institute of Connecticut -- a local Christian group -- the board reversed its decision yet again. The Family Institute helped secure pro bono legal representation for the board from the American Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit law firm that is closely tied to evangelical Christians through founder Pat Robertson.

Despite threats of legal action, the Enfield Board of Education voted in April to hold graduation at First Cathedral.

That's when the ACLU and Americans United brought their lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Enfield Board of Education, citing a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which establishes the separation between church and state.