Defiant Students in Utah Escape Disciplinary Action

Students in Utah who defied a court order and sang the religious song a Jewish students had fought to have barred from a public high school graduation ceremony will not be punished, the school has announced.

Instead, William Boston, the principal of West High School, plans to hold informal meetings throughout the summer with parents and students concerned about the issue, said Sherri Clark, spokeswoman of the Salt Lake City school district.

Rachel Bauchman, who had been called “Jew bitch” and “dirty Jew” for her legal efforts to ban religious songs from her choir class, reacted to the school’s decision, saying she thought that “some measure of discipline” was necessary.

“Something should have been done to let these kids know they defied a court order,” the 16-year-old said in a telephone interview from her Salt Lake City home this week.

Bauchman, a member of the school’s choir class, had waged a yearlong legal battle to prevent the signing of religious songs in her predominantly Mormon choir class. She had argued that the songs violated her constitutional right to the separation of church and state.

One day before the graduation, a court had issued an order barring two religious songs from the ceremony.

But at the June 7 graduation, the school’s choir sang one of the banned songs anyway after a graduating senior appealed to the crowd.

Some of the choir students and about half the audience sang the song, despite attempts by school officials to stop the student rebellion.

Bauchman and her mother, Cheryl, walked out of the ceremony when the song ended.

The National Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty, which had assisted the Bauchmans in their legal challenge, also criticized the school’s decision. The coalition includes some Jewish organizations.

The decision shows that school officials “don’t see themselves as having any affirmative duty to make the school a safe haven for all children, and that’s really disconcerting,” said Lisa Thurau, the group’s executive director.

“I’m sorry that the school feels that it can’t respect all children’s right and that it bowed under the weight of the majority,” she said.

Barring the graduation songs was the result of the first step in a larger suit the Bauchmans filed against the school.

In the suit, they allege that the choir class, by continually performing religious songs, violated Rachel Bauchman’s constitutional rights.

A trial date has not yet been set in that case.

Bauchman had planned to take the choir class again next year, but has since changed her mind because it was “too upsetting,” Thurau said.

Clark, the school district’s spokeswoman, could not comment on the case itself, but she did say the school is “reviewing” the choir class’ curriculum.

As for next year’s graduation, “final decision haven’t been made,” Clark said. School officials are also discussing some type of diversity or sensitivity training class, Clark said.

Clark said she could not speculate why the principal had decide not to punish the students involved. The principal’s secretary said he was barred from discussing the incident and referred all calls to the superintendent’s office.