SIU BANS PRAYER AT GRADUATION CEREMONIES

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale has banned prayer at its graduation ceremonies in the face of constitutional concerns.

Southeast Missouri State University did the same thing nearly three years ago.

SIU President John Guyon said Tuesday that he issued the ban after he received a letter from the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

ACLU officials from Chicago charged in the March 3 letter that the university was in violation of the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that bars publicly funded schools from sponsoring prayer at graduation ceremonies.

"I am writing to express our concern about this unconstitutional practice and to ask that the university change its practice to comply with the law," ACLU official Jane Whicher wrote.

At SIU, each college holds its own graduate ceremony. Some had continued to include prayer in their commencement exercises.

In 1994, prayer was included in commencement ceremonies involving the colleges of agriculture, science, engineering, mass communication and media arts, and technical careers, and the graduate school.

Whicher said prayers were delivered by university officials and outside speakers.

Guyon said he had received little public reaction since banning prayer. "It seemingly is not terribly controversial here."

Many of SIU's colleges had eliminated prayer from their ceremonies over the past decade.

"We have been evolving in that direction for quite a long time," the university president said.

Guyon said SIU was simply following in the footsteps of other public colleges in Illinois.

"Someone expressed concern to the ACLU, which expressed concern to me. We decided we ought to get in compliance with the Supreme Court rule," Guyon said.

Whicher said students who wish to celebrate their graduation with religious observances have many options, such as baccalaureate services sponsored by local churches.

Southeast Missouri State University, without fanfare, eliminated invocations and benedictions from its graduation exercise in summer 1992 in response to the high court's ruling.

Since then, prayer hasn't been part of Southeast's commencement. "The spring of '92 was the last time we had one," Assistant Registrar Julia Grueneberg said.

Grueneberg said the elimination of commencement prayers went virtually unnoticed by the public. Few people have asked that prayer be restored to the ceremony, she said.