Singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” might be okay in Maplewood-South Orange schools in New Jersey. But “Silent Night” and “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” are still out. A board of education policy that prohibits celebratory religious music in district schools was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

The three-judge panel said there was “no constitutional violation” in the policy because other constitutional principles require public schools to remain strictly secular environments. “Those of us who were educated in the public schools remember holiday celebrations replete with Christmas carols, and possibly even Chanukah songs, to which no objections had been raised. Since then, the governing principles have been examined and defined with more particularity,” Judge Dolores Korman Sloviter wrote for the court.

The judges said public school administrations can discern which songs are most appropriate according to those constitutional guidelines because schools already are charged with the responsibility of creating a secular “inclusive environment” for students every day.

The controversy dates to 2004 when the Maplewood-South Orange district extended a 1990 ban on singing religious songs in school performances to include instrumental versions of those songs. Calls to the school district’s lawyer seeking comment yesterday were not returned.

A parent in the school district, Michael Stratechuk, filed a lawsuit in December 2004, saying the ban on all religious music is a violation of the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of worship. Stratechuk’s lawyer, Robert J. Muise, is with the Thomas More Law Center, a public interest law firm in Ann Arbor, Mich., that promotes religious freedom for Christians.

“The establishment clause requires the government to be neutral to religion. A policy that makes exclusions based solely on religion is hardly a policy that is neutral to religion,” Muise said of the court’s decision. He also said he and his client will ask the court to rehear the case. If denied, they may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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