By Neena Strichart
We’ve all watched award programs on television and heard acceptance speeches during which the honoree thanked everybody from “my director” to “anyone I ever met in my entire life.” During graduation speeches, it is common for students to express gratitude to parents, special teachers or fellow co-eds. With the pressure to appear politically correct, some organizations insist on previewing acceptance speeches. The Powers That Be at UCLA recently faced a dilemma regarding what to allow or not allow during a student’s speech for an upcoming graduation ceremony. Below are excerpts from a press release I received this past Tuesday from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) telling about the situation at UCLA. I did call and verify the validity of the press release with the office of the university’s campus counsel and was assured that it was indeed legitimate.
I think our readers will find the matter quite interesting!
Officials from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), confirmed Tuesday that they will permit a Christian student’s graduation statement to include a word of thanks to Jesus Christ after first saying they would not allow the sentence. Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom urged officials in a letter Friday afternoon to refrain from violating her free speech rights. The student, Christina Popa, received a voice mail from the school Friday evening that her statement will be read verbatim during the June 13 commencement ceremony.“Christian students shouldn’t be silenced when expressing their beliefs at public universities and are entitled to the same rights as all other students,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker. “We are pleased that UCLA officials understand that denying religious liberty to students is a violation of the First Amendment, not a requirement of it. A personal statement at a graduation ceremony is exactly that— personal— and in no way signifies an endorsement of religion by the school. We commend UCLA for acting quickly to protect Ms. Popa’s constitutional rights.” On May 21, Dr. Pamela Hurley, student affairs advisor for the Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology Department at UCLA, emailed all graduating students to collect short personal statements from them that she would read as they crossed the stage to receive their degree at the June 13 department commencement ceremony. Hurley informed students that the statements, called “Words of Wisdom,” could contain “almost anything,” including expressions of gratitude, UCLA experiences, family acknowledgements, favorite quotes, etc. She added that some of the most memorable statements were “fanciful” or “outrageously wild,” but suggested that students bypass political, derogatory, or “specific religious expression.” Popa opened her proposed statement with, “I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” before thanking her deceased father and other family members for their encouragement, and closed with her future career plans. Hurley responded in an email that UCLA observes the “separation of church and state,” and that instead of reading, ‘I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,’ Hurley would only allow, ‘First, I want to thank God.'” When Popa objected, Hurley said the only other option was to read none of Popa’s comments at the ceremony.After ADF attorneys wrote to the school over the matter on Friday afternoon, Popa received a voice mail on Friday evening saying that she would be allowed to read her comments as originally written. The university confirmed this by letter Tuesday.
I’m anxious to see if our readers have any comments on the above matter. If so, please email me at neena@signaltribune.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
