Meet Micah Price, the high school senior from Campbell County, Kentucky, who late last month was almost denied his diploma for giving Jesus Christ a shout-out during an off-script commencement speech.
Footage of Micah’s speech began circulating on social media last week.
“Class, before another word leaves my mouth, I must give the honor, the praise and the glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he said to the cheering applause of his classmates.
Micah has since explained that he was given permission to express as much by high school leadership. What they didn’t approve was the next part:
… Who in his very words tells us he is the light, he is the way, the truth and the life. Class, everyone in the audience today, I’m here to tell you that if you don’t have any of those things in your life, if you can’t seem to find the answer, then my Lord and Savior is your answer. He will give you the truth, give you the way, and give you the life.
While the crowd expressed enthusiasm for Micah’s additional remarks, not so the school’s principals.
In a TikTok video posted several days after the event, Micah revealed that he had not received his diploma at the graduation ceremony and that he had been told by a school principal he would have to go in front of the school board first and explain his actions.
“If anyone’s in the wrong, it’s me,” Micah conceded in the self-recorded clip. “I went against school policy, school rules. I went against that because I serve a higher power—because I serve Christ.”
“My message was not to be disrespectful,” he continued. “It was not to do anything except for express my love for Christ and how much he’s changed my life.”
Local 12 (WKRC-TV) out of Cincinnati has since reported that “Five days after graduation, Price sat down with his principals to explain why he veered from his approved graduation speech to give his classmates a lesson about God” and that Price has now been granted his diploma.
Micah told the station it is “an answered prayer” to finally hold his high school diploma in his hands.
However, he did not back down from his message, saying, “I would do it again times two.”
The place of faith in American public schools—the Christian faith in particular—is one of the “culture war” issues of yesteryear that was effectively lost by its proponents and has since been more or less abandoned, with the exception of occasional brave individuals like Micah.
A long succession of Supreme Court cases spelt its slow demise.
Official school prayers were abolished thanks to Engel v. Vitale (1962). A year later, Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) declared Bible readings in public schools unconstitutional.
The posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms was challenged and restricted in public schools in Stone v. Graham (1980), a Supreme Court case that centered on a statute in Micah Price’s home state of Kentucky.
Prayers by religious leaders at graduation ceremonies were ruled unconstitutional by Lee v. Weisman (1992). Soon afterward, prayers led by students at school events suffered the same fate under Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000).
While religious symbols in schools, religious instruction during school hours, and the promotion of religious beliefs in public schools have not been subject to specific Supreme Court rulings, they are often practically dealt with in the way Micah Price experienced firsthand.
Indeed, Campbell County Schools Superintendent Shelli Wilson explained to Local 12 that “off-program choices such as speech, signs, and caps in support of any cause or religion, injecting inappropriate language, or political election statements” would not be tolerated at the graduation ceremony.
When asked why, she provided no further comment.
While American courts and progressive activists have successfully expunged the nation’s majority religion from its own taxpayer-funded school system, arguably, they have failed to remove faith entirely.
As critics of wokeness have argued convincingly for several years, wokeness has taken on many of the trappings of religious faith and is now highly influential in public schools across the country.
I would argue that this is the fruit of the secular neutrality myth. By our very nature, we humans will always seek transcendent meaning and values. When we remove one religion from the public square—including public schools—another belief system will inevitably rush in to fill the void.
As I recently heard it suggested, murders were far less common in American schools when the Ten Commandments were proudly displayed. Today, it seems, ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ has been replaced with ‘Thou Shalt Not Speak the Name of God.”
What are your thoughts? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
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Image credit: Pexels
