Virginia defends military college's dinner prayers

By The Associated Press

12.18.01

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LYNCHBURG, Va. — A lawyer for the state told a federal judge late last week that Virginia Military Institute's evening dinner prayer is intended for development of military leaders, not for religious indoctrination.

Solicitor General William Hurd on Dec. 14 asked U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon to declare VMI's daily prayer constitutional.

The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the prayer in May on behalf of Neil Mellen and Paul Knick, who said their complaints about the prayers had been rebuffed by school officials. Officials of the state-supported university in Lexington said cadets are not required to pray or to bow their heads or stand at attention while others pray.

"They can scratch their head, they can clean their glasses, they can turn to their neighbor and say, 'Those biscuits sure look good,"' Hurd said.

Hurd also said organized prayer is common in the military, and the dinner prayer helps VMI in its mission of developing citizen-soldiers.

"This case is not about whether prayers in the military are constitutional," said ACLU lawyer Rebecca Glenberg. "This is a state university."

Moon said he would decide "within a reasonable time" whether to uphold VMI's policy, declare it unconstitutional or conduct a trial on the issue.

Cadets at the Citadel, South Carolina's military college, are given the opportunity to say a blessing before mandatory meals, but they are to "refrain from specific religious references," said school spokeswoman Charlene Gunnells.

"They do it on a voluntary basis," said Gunnells, who said she has heard of few problems or complaints. Cadets can be punished if they break the rules, she said.

Evening prayers have been a tradition at VMI since at least the 1950s, except for about five years in the early 1990s, when cadets did not all eat dinner together.

Every night, cadets march into the mess hall in formation. Before they're served, a member of the corps usually reads a non-denominational prayer, school officials have acknowledged.

Last March, Mellen wrote in an editorial for The Cadet, a student newspaper, that the mess hall prayer "promotes religion over non-religion and fosters an environment in which non-participants can feel like or be treated as outsiders."

The lawsuit asks the court to find that the VMI prayer violates the constitutional protection of religious freedom and issue an injunction to stop the prayer. Mellen and Knick are also asking for nominal monetary damages.

Update

Virginia Military Institute must discontinue dinner prayers
Federal judge finds ceremonies unconstitutional 'state-sponsored religious exercise'; state attorney general says he'll appeal decision.  01.25.02

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ACLU sues to stop dinner prayers at Virginia Military Institute
‘Those (cadets) who don’t want to pray are perceived as breaking the conformity that the school expects,’ says civil libertarian.  05.10.01