While at the request of school officials one West Ottawa (MI) High School valedictorian removed Bible verses from his graduation speech, another slipped some in.
“If they weren’t going to let Jed speak, I figured I could,” West Ottawa class of 2008 President Andrew Webster said of his fellow valedictorian Jed Grooters.
“What I said is what I truly felt and saying anything else would not have been true to who I am,” Webster said. “I wasn’t expressing the views of the school, I was expressing my own views. ... I was told to write an essay about a life lesson and I did that.”
Each of the nine valedictorians was asked to prepare a two-minute speech to read at Sunday’s commencement ceremony. The speeches had to be pre-approved by school officials. School officials had asked Grooters to remove an extended Bible quotation from his speech and rewrite it in his own words. If he refused, Grooters would not have been allowed to speak at his graduation.
Grooters’ speech was first rejected because it consisted almost entirely of one long quote, West Ottawa Superintendent Patricia Koeze said earlier this week. The school’s legal counsel advised officials that quoting Scripture at the graduation ceremony was a violation of the “no establishment of religion” clause in the First Amendment, she said.
“You may have heard I will no longer be giving the speech I was going to because it is inappropriate for a graduation setting,” Grooters said Sunday afternoon, eliciting a boo or two from audience members.
He did not read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 as he had planned. Instead, Grooters put together a few words, ending with: “Jesus loves you and that is the most important life lesson of all.”
He introduced the next valedictorian who had to wait for the standing ovation to die down.
Webster’s original, pre-approved speech was along the lines of “life is a game and we spend too much time spinning around and not focusing on important things,” he said.
Without telling officials, Webster changed his speech to include John 16:33, Ecclesiastes 3:10-14, 4:4, 4:7-8, 5:18-20 and 5:10 — “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless.” — and 5:15 — “Naked a man comes from his mother’s womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.”Webster said Grooters had inspired him to be true to himself.
School officials did not approach him after the ceremony and will not reprimand him, they said.
“What I’ll say about that is one of our speeches went longer than what was planned, but overall the kids did a great job,” Principal Kent Henson said after the ceremony.
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