CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A bill creating the West Virginia Student Religious Liberties Act passed through the House Education Committee on Tuesday.
House Bill 4069, which heads to the full House of Delegates for consideration, would protect several student rights when it came to the expression of religion.
Those include in the bill student expression, religious expression in class assignments, freedom to organize religious groups and activities, limited public forum and school district policy, certain acts restricted, and certain authority that may not be limited.
Delegate Cody Thompson (D-Randolph) was among the lawmakers in committee that stood against the bill, mainly when it to came to the limited public forum measure.
“I am against this, particularly the part where we can try to dictate at the legislature of who and who cannot speak at graduations and events at that nature,” Thompson said.
“We talk about local control and yet now we are going to have to put disclaimers into our graduation programs for this reason.”
The bill does include a disclaimer that schools must put out when students speak in public forums, such as a graduation ceremony that says: “State, in writing, orally, or both, that the student’s speech does not reflect the endorsement, sponsorship, position, or expression of the district.”
“I cannot believe we are going to make school systems print a disclaimer in the programs for graduation…because someone sitting in the audience might not agree with what the person says,” Delegate Ed Evans (D-McDowell) said.
Delegate Mark Dean (R-Mingo) believes that is the right thing to do and supported the bill Tuesday.
“I do have some concerns with some of the prescriptive nature that I see in defining who the speakers of different events can be,” he said.
“I do think some school districts have been asking for guidance in these subjects.”
Delegate John Doyle (D-Jefferson) called the piece of legislation “over-prescriptive and exceptionally confusing” when it came to the public forum pieces.
The reasoning behind the piece as stated in the legislation is to ensure that the school district does not discriminate against a student’s publicly stated voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint, if any.
The bill would also allow students in public schools to pray or engage in religious activities or religious expression before, during and after the school day in the same manner and to the same extent that students may engage in nonreligious activities or expression. This was already thought by some delegates in the room to be protected by the First Amendment.
If passed through and signed into law, the act shall be in force beginning with the 2020-2021 school year.