As Trial Looms, Louisiana District Changes Policy on Meeting Prayers

The Tangipahoa Parish, La., school board has altered its meeting invocation policy, as a federal lawsuit over such prayers heads toward trial in June.

But the school board’s lawyer said changes to the policy, a model also used by municipal governments in other states, stemmed from concerns raised elsewhere and not as a result of the litigation in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

The policy sets forth how the board should select clergy to deliver invocations in advance of meetings and when and under what circumstances those invocations are to be given: generally about five minutes before meetings start.

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The school board and the plaintiffs are set to go to trial June 1. The plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.