''Daugherty v. Vanguard'', 116 F.Supp.2d 897 (W.D. Mich. 2000) is one of a number of United States federal cases decided in the 2000s pertaining to the scope of allowable religious expression and/or activities in public schools. In the court's summary judgment issued in September 2000,

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

Judge

David McKeague David William McKeague (born November 5, 1946) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Education and career McKeague received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michi ...

ruled that Vanguard Charter Academy and its corporate parent,

National Heritage Academies National Heritage Academies, Inc. (NHA) is a for-profit education management organization headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As of the 2019-20 school year, NHA operates 88 charter schools in nine states: Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Nor ...

, did not violate the

Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text ...

of the

First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, th ...

through its Moral Focus Curriculum. The case filed in the

United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan (in case citations, W.D. Mich.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over of the western portion of the state of Michigan, including the entire Upper Peninsula and t ...

-Southern Division derives its name from plaintiff Megan Daugherty and four other parents who alleged in 1998 that their children were subjected to "Christian influences" while the children attended Vanguard Charter School Academy in Wyoming, Michigan. Judge McKeague ruled that the allegations were unfounded and granted summary judgment to Vanguard and its parent corporation. In the court's 36-page opinion, Judge McKeague found that the school maintained a "correct posture of neutrality" regarding religious activities during school. The court granted the school and National Heritage Academies summary judgment, finding that the defendants "presented no more than a scintilla of evidence to support a finding that any constitutionally impermissible conduct occurred." The ruling was not appealed by the defendants. The court's opinion in ''Daugherty v. Vanguard'' is consistent with the U.S. Department of Education's "Guidelines on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools".U.S. Department of Education
''Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools''
{{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161216013335/http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/religionandschools/prayer_guidance.html , date=December 16, 2016 , February 7, 2003

Notes

Establishment Clause case law Religion and children Legal history of Michigan 2000 in United States case law