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members who wanted the graduation to be held indoors complained to the Board of Education, and a month later the board rescinded its initial vote and began investigating other options.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.

Schools Around the Country Face Similar Church-State Battles

Court documents describe a dialogue that took place on Facebook between Greg Stokes, chairman of the Board of Education, and Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, which included "discussions of strategy on how to best ensure that the Enfield graduations would be held at First Cathedral."

Stokes, who's the pastor at a local nondenominational Christian church, said the push for First Cathedral was purely economics.

"Peter Wolfgang had no influence at all on my decision," he said.

Other schools have faced similar legal challenges to holding graduation in religious spaces.

Schools in Brevard County, Florida, had also tried to hold graduation ceremonies in a church in 2005. They eventually settled a lawsuit brought by Americans United and agreed not to hold subsequent graduations at religious venues. A nearly identical case is ongoing in Wisconsin.

In the Connecticut case, the ACLU and Americans United pressured the court for an immediate injunction that would prevent the schools from holding the class of 2010 graduations at the First Cathedral Church. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall issued an injunction May 31 that forced the schools to find a different venue this year; whether they can hold graduations at the church in the future is still part of an ongoing lawsuit.

In preparation for the injunction, the ACLU had reserved four other indoor venues so the schools would not be stuck without a place to hold graduation, according to Schneider. Yet the schools decided not to hold the graduations indoors, and instead, hosted them on the fields behind each high school.

"If this was so important, to have it in an indoor location, then why didn't they have it at the Symphony Hall, or one of the other indoor locations that were closer when the judge ruled that they couldn't have it at First Cathedral?" Schneider asked.

Schneider also pointed out that some of these other venues were less expensive than First Cathedral, a fact that is reflected in the court documents. But none of these alternatives fit the schools' needs, Stokes said.

Church Graduation a Matter of Economics

"We didn't pick this fight," said Stokes. "We made a decision based on the economics of this."

Enfield High School seniors and their families braved the heat and humidity Wednesday night as they graduated on the fields behind their school. A plane flew overhead with a banner that displayed the words "God is here." The next night, Fermi seniors packed into the gym because of weather concerns that forced them to move inside.

Graduation might be over for the class of 2010, but the battle has just begun. It will continue in U.S. District Court of Connecticut, which will determine whether future graduations can be held at First Cathedral.

Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, the 2010 graduations at these two Enfield schools will be long remembered for years to come.