Cutting through the legal fog, the key in the student media context is determining who is the actual speaker of the religious message.

Can we wish our readers, 'Merry Christmas'?" asked the editor of a high school newspaper who explained that his principal had told him to remove the 2 x 4-inch box with those words from their opinion page because it was a "church-state violation."

While the holiday season often triggers such disputes, questions about the role of religious speech in student media are common throughout the year. Among them: (1) Can we run an ad submitted by a local church? (2) Can a student distribute a religious pamphlet she created on school grounds? (3) Can my reporter describe his summer experience working as a missionary? (4) Can we publish a student's column or a letter to the editor on the importance religion plays in his or her life?

While a simple "yes" or "no" to these questions is generally not possible without more information, most are surprised to hear that the answer usually has almost nothing to do with the religious content of the material and everything to do with the policies and practices that govern the newspaper.

School officials who have attempted to censor religious-based speech usually claim that they are concerned about violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which says that the government may not establish or promote a particular religion.

At the same time, however, the First Amendment also requires that the government allow individuals to freely exercise their own religious beliefs.

It can be a complicated line to straddle and courts have often done a poor job in clarifying the issue. The Supreme Court is poised to take another stab at it next year when it hears a Texas case that questions whether student-led prayer before a public high school football game violates the Establishment Clause.

Cutting through the legal fog, the key in the student media context is determining who is the actual speaker of the religious message. Where it is demonstrated that students—and students only—are responsible for the religious expression (or, in the case of outside submissions such as advertisements, accepting or rejecting the material) there should be no church/state conflict. Students are not government officials and only the government can establish an official religion. Moreover, where there is a clear policy or practice of allowing students to make their own editorial decisions, a school is probably constitutionally prohibited from interfering. In such cases, religious speech is entitled to the same strong constitutional protection as any other type of lawful speech.

So while wishing classmates "Seasons Greetings" or "Happy Holidays" may help an editor avoid the controversy altogether, as long as he or she is making the call, it's not necessary for the principal to play the role of The Scrooge.

Visit the Student Press Law Center online at http://www.splc.org.