Borden’s lawsuit grounded in the First Amendment
I’ve had my issues with East Brunswick High School football coach Marcus Borden over the years – personal and philosophical.
I thought he was acting like a baby when he resigned in a snit because the administration told him he couldn’t lead or participate in prayers before a game.
The next week, I quietly applauded his decision to return to his job and attempt to change the system from within.
News last week that he filed a lawsuit against the East Brunswick School District for violating his constitutional rights by telling him he can’t participate in student-initiated team prayer is bittersweet.
It’s unfortunate that the costs of that lawsuit may fall on the backs of East Brunswick taxpayers, myself included. Property taxes in my community are high enough already without the cost of expensive litigation added on.
But cost aside, I hope Borden wins this lawsuit, even if he has to take it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, because he’s right.
And instead of fighting Borden, if we taxpayers have to spend money on litigation in a just cause, perhaps we ought to spend it supporting Borden’s suit instead of trying to defeat it.
Other issues aside, Borden’s is a fight to preserve an important freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Nowhere in the Constitution do the words “separation of church and state” appear. That phrase was first coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter written in 1802, and courts have since expanded Jefferson’s notion and narrowly interpreted the First Amendment in a series of cases regarding the issue of prayer in schools.
But those are only interpretations, and interpretations can be wrong. They can certainly be changed.
Borden says the East Brunswick administration’s policy (based on Supreme Court rulings) that he cannot initiate, or even participate in, team prayer violates his constitutional right to freely exercise his own religion and freedom of speech.
In other words, if players on his team initiate a nonsectarian prayer before a game and he bows his head, or takes a knee to pray with them, he is not forcing religion on anyone, he is only freely exercising his own constitutionally protected right to pray and speak to his own god.
The founding fathers of this country believed this right to be so unalienable that they guaranteed it in the First Amendment, not the Second Amendment or even the Third Amendment. They included it in their First Amendment, the same amendment members of my profession rely on every day as we produce the newspaper you’re reading now. We use that amendment as our shield and sword, and we are quick to rise in righteous indignation at any attempt to water down its clear intent.
For us, then, the question is not, “Should we support Marcus Borden?” The question is, “How can we not?”
And perhaps the quest is not entirely quixotic.
For many years between the late 1940s and the 1990s, the U.S. Supreme Court imposed stricter and stricter interpretations on the issue of religion in schools, but a 1997 decision might signal something of a change.
In Tafford v. Brand, the court rejected a challenge to Indiana University’s tradition of having two ministers offer prayers at graduation. In refusing to hear the case, they upheld a ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said, in part, “The university’s practice … has prevailed for 155 years and is widespread throughout the nation. Rather than being in violation of the Constitution it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.”
Sound familiar? It ought to. As Borden noted when the controversy first erupted, he was continuing a long tradition of nonsectarian prayer before games, a tradition that more than 50 percent of high school coaches across the nation still observe.
I believe the administration in East Brunswick was only doing what it had to do in order to protect the district when they prohibited Borden from leading or participating in prayer before football games. They were simply requiring that he obey the court’s rulings on the issue. Failure to do so would subject the district to expensive litigation, litigation it might lose. Now it looks like there will be litigation, despite their best intentions, and that’s a shame. But at least the principles involved in the lawsuit are important – not just to Borden, but to all of us.
As I said, those Supreme Court rulings are not constitutional law. They are interpretations, and wrong-headed interpretations into the bargain. They can, and should, be challenged.
It’s too bad Borden and the school district can’t be on the same side.
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Just when I become so pessimistic about local New Jersey politics that I think there’s just no hope, something happens to rekindle my optimism.
Last week, faced with a dire situation regarding the community’s recreation budget, the mayor and Borough Council in Helmetta voted to donate their entire annual salaries for recreation.
The community’s total recreation budget for this year was $5,100, and next year looked worse. With the addition of $10,900 from the mayor and council’s salaries, recreational opportunities in this small, financially strapped community will grow, not shrink.
To my mind, it’s generous decisions like this that illustrate the best principles of altruistic community service. Granted, the number of dollars involved is small by comparison to similar budgets in surrounding communities, but in Helmetta those dollars will make a huge difference.
I wonder how many other mayors and council members in our circulation area are willing to make a similar gesture.
Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers.