Paul Goldfinger photo.The Great Auditorium. Ocean Grove. September 11, 2011. Blogfinger.net Click to enlarge.
U.S. MARINE BAND. “Colonel Bogey” from an album called “Great Marches Not by Sousa.”
Posts Tagged ‘Great Auditorium’
Modern OG history: September 11, 2011. Ocean Grove, NJ.
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, Ocean Grove events, Ocean Grove Great Auditorium, Ocean Grove lifestyles, Ocean Grove Musical Event, Photographic Gallery: Ocean Grove, Photography by Paul Goldfinger, tagged Great Auditorium, Patriotism in Ocean Grove on February 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
OG News from the past–2011: Neptune H.S. and the ACLU come to terms. School board president: “This case is closed”
Posted in Neptune Township News, tagged A deal is struck with the ACLU, Great Auditorium, Neptune graduation, NHS graduation will occur in the GA on December 27, 2021| 14 Comments »
Prior NHS graduation in the GA. neptunematters.com
By Charles Layton (Re-post from 2011) Blogfinger staff/editor.
Neptune school board president John Daniels announced Wednesday night that the board and the American Civil Liberties Union have reached agreement.
This means the district’s senior class will graduate in the Ocean Grove Great Auditorium on June 17, as previous classes have done for at least the past seven decades.
Daniels made the announcement at the start of a Board of Education meeting at Summerfield School. The ACLU, he said, “has accepted the compromise that we have made… This case is closed, ladies and gentlemen. We won’t be talking about this any more.”
Graduation plans had been thrown into turmoil in recent weeks over the ACLU’s threat to bring suit over the inclusion of religious rites and symbols in past graduation ceremonies and over the use of the Great Auditorium — a house of worship — by a public school. The ACLU was acting in behalf of a grandmother of some students.
The deal that was reached on Wednesday gave the ACLU and its client nearly everything they had been seeking. According to ACLU attorney Jeffrey Pollock, he and his co-counsel, Seval Yildirim, received a compromise proposal recently that contained the following provisions:
- The board would agree that this and future graduation ceremonies would be free of religious content, i.e., prayers and Christian hymns.
- The Great Auditorium could be used for graduations if the two large religious signs on either side of the stage were covered during the ceremony, the large cross outside the building remained unlit, and the choir door to the left of the main entrance near the gazebo was also covered.
The ACLU had earlier asked that the cross on the front of the building be covered, but the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which owns the building, refused to do that. Having the cross unlit instead of covered turned out to solve that problem.
Pollock said that he and Yildirim took the board’s offer to their client on Tuesday, the client agreed to the terms, and on Wednesday they notified the board’s attorney.
Pollock said in an interview that if the board accepted those terms, “I think this matter may be quickly and easily resolved.”
Daniels said, in addressing the audience at Wednesday night’s meeting, that the board had not “folded” during negotiations. But, he said, “times have changed,” apparently referring to court rulings involving the separation of religion and government. He spoke very briefly and did not mention the terms of the agreement.
Pollock said, quoting an old saying about negotiations, “To me the sign of a good offer is that both parties are unhappy.”
One of the last sticking points, apparently, was the ACLU’s demand that the two electronic signs on either side of the stage be covered. Some said there were concerns that this could not be done without risking damage to those signs. These are the signs that say, on one side, “Holiness to the Lord” and on the other side “So be ye holy.”
In recent days the dispute had begun attracting national attention. Fox News had featured interviews and reports about the issue, and two legal groups associated with fundamentalist Christian organizations had offered to defend the school district free of charge if the ACLU followed through with its threat to bring suit.
The grandmother first raised the church-and-state issue last summer at a school board meeting. Shortly thereafter, the ACLU began negotiating in her behalf.
Although the school board rather quickly agreed to eliminate religious references from the graduation ceremony, the question of religious signs in and about the Great Auditorium remained a sticking point until the very end.
Did you know that you can walk right in to the Great Auditorium “most weekdays?” Just walk right in…
Posted in Blogfinger Presents, tagged Great Auditorium on August 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Sign outside the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove. August, 2018. Blogfinger photo.
DR HOOK:
Who ordered the veal chop?
Posted in Photography in New Jersey, Photography: Black and White gallery, Photos from the Great Auditorium, tagged Great Auditorium on July 16, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Excitement at the Great Auditorium. Photograph by Paul Goldfinger. Undated © Click to enlarge. Re-post from 2017.
ASTRUD AND JOAO GILBERTO (Brazilian music in Portuguese) “A Fellucidade.”
Full Text of the ACLU-Neptune School Board Agreement
Posted in Neptune Township News, Ocean Grove news, tagged aclu, Great Auditorium, Neptune graduation on May 26, 2011| 10 Comments »
THURSDAY, May 26 — The Neptune school district’s attorney today sent the ACLU of New Jersey a certified copy of the school board resolution agreeing to the terms of the settlement between the two parties.
This is the final step in resolving the dispute.
The full text of the resolution, approved by the school board on Wednesday, is as follows:
WHEREAS, the Neptune Township Board of Education has, for more than 70 years, conducted its High School graduation ceremony at the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove; and
WHEREAS, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey has raised various concerns both to the content of the graduation program and the use of the Great Auditorium as the graduation venue; and
WHEREAS, the Board and the ACLU have agreed to various changes to the High School graduation ceremony designed to address the ACLU’s concerns while preserving the Great Auditorium High School graduation tradition; and
WHEREAS, the Board seeks to memorialize its agreement with the ACLU in a formal Board Resolution.
NOW, THEREFORE, the Board of Education of the Township of Neptune, in the County of Monmouth, resolves as follows:
1. At the 2011 graduation ceremony and in the future, the religious sign on the choir entrance door will be covered;
2. At the 2011 graduation ceremony and in the future, the Board of Education will cover the two large electronic signs within the Great Auditorium so that they are not visible during the course of the graduation ceremony;
3. At the 2011 graduation ceremony and in the future, the Board of Education will not illuminate the cross on the front of the Great Auditorium while attendees and graduates are entering, participating in and leaving the graduation ceremony; and the entrance where the cross is displayed will not be the primary entrance and;
4. At the 2011 graduation ceremony and in the future, the Board of Education will not incorporate any hymn, prayers or other religious content into the graduation ceremony;
5. At the 2011 graduation ceremony and in the future, pupils and guests will enter the Great Auditorium through the doors located at the south, west and north sides of the building and no pupils or guests will be required to enter the Auditorium from the east side of the building where the cross is located.
So moved.
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NOTE: For background on the dispute between the school board and the ACLU, go here.
Great Auditorium Dispute Goes National
Posted in Neptune Township News, Ocean Grove news, tagged aclu, Great Auditorium, Neptune graduation on May 19, 2011| 14 Comments »
Fox News meets Ocean Grove. Photo by Charles Layton
By Charles Layton and Paul Goldfinger
The dispute over Neptune High School’s use of the Great Auditorium for graduation ceremonies drew national attention on Wednesday, when the Fox News program “Fox and Friends” featured interviews about the issue. Fox also posted a story and a video report on its website.
The television segment was based on interviews with Neptune School Superintendent David Mooij and Rev. Scott Hoffman of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association.
Also on Wednesday, a born-again Christian legal advocacy group announced that it had offered to represent Neptune High School in court, free of charge, in the event of a law suit.
The school district has been in negotiations with the American Civil Liberties Union — and under threat of legal action — over its use of the Ocean Grove Great Auditorium for high school graduation ceremonies. The ACLU is asking that certain religious signs, including the large white cross outside the building, be covered during this year’s graduation and that the practice of having a Christian invocation and Christian hymns as part of the program be discontinued. (Read our original story by clicking here.)
The legal advocacy group, Liberty Counsel, sent a letter to Mooij and the school board, dated May 17, saying it agrees with them that the school district “does not violate any student’s constitutional rights by simply using a church building to host graduation ceremonies.” The letter said that, “assuming we reach an agreement on strategy,” Liberty Counsel would be happy to represent the district and “cover all the legal costs.”
The organization describes itself as “a national public interest law firm specializing in constitutional law, particularly free speech, religious freedom, and church-state matters.” It has offices in Florida, Virginia, Texas and Washington, D.C. It’s press release and letter to Mooij can be found on its website: click here.
Mooij told Fox News that, as a result of negotiations with the ACLU, the district has already agreed to discontinue the practice of including an invocation and religious music in this year’s graduation ceremonies. However, the covering up of religious signs in and about the building has become the sticking point. Hoffman told Fox that the Camp Meeting would not agree to removing those signs. “The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association is a Christian ministry,” Hoffman said, “and we can’t change who we are.”
Both Hoffman and Mooij were interviewed on Tuesday by Lauren Green, a Fox religion correspondent. Hoffman told Blogfinger that his interview with Green was brief, because he sees the CMA as “peripheral” in the dispute. He did say he was “supportive of the school board.”
Graduation is scheduled for June 17. The ACLU is representing the grandmother of one of last year’s graduating seniors. The woman also has relatives scheduled to graduate from Neptune next year.
Neptune Seniors’ Graduation in Great Auditorium Is Challenged. ACLU Law Suit Possible
Posted in Charles Layton, Neptune Township News, Ocean Grove news, tagged Great Auditorium, Neptune graduation, Neptune High School, neptune high school graduation, the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove on May 14, 2011| 66 Comments »
The Great Auditorium interior during the Choir Festival. Photos by Paul Goldfinger
— UPDATED STORY: Includes interview with ACLU attorneys —
By Charles Layton
The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening legal action unless the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association removes religious symbols from the Great Auditorium prior to Neptune High School’s graduation ceremonies there.
The dispute is over the constitutional issue of separation of church and state.
Graduation is scheduled for June 17.
The Neptune Board of Education has been negotiating with ACLU attorneys and their client for some time and has made several concessions in hopes of avoiding legal action. According to Superintendent David Mooij, the board has agreed to remove all religious content from the graduation program. However, Mooij said, the two sides remain stuck over the ACLU’s claim that “religious objects” should also be covered from view. The objects at issue are the large white cross on the front of the building, the two lighted religious signs inside on either side of the stage (shown in photo above) and a religious symbol at one of the doorways.
Mooij said the Camp Meeting Association, which owns the auditorium, has offered to make some concessions but says it “can’t take down or cover those signs, and I agree with them.”
The two ALCU attorneys said they thought it would be a simple and inexpensive matter for the Camp Meeting to cover up the four signs for the night of the graduation only. “We don’t think that’s too much to ask,” said Jeffrey Pollock, a Princeton attorney who is handling the case along with his wife, Seval Yildirim, a law professor at Whittier Law School in California.
Neptune High School has been holding graduation ceremonies in the Great Auditorium for six or seven decades. Shortly after last year’s graduation the grandmother of a graduate sent a letter to the school board objecting to the ceremony’s religious content and to its location in a place of worship. She also voiced her complaint at the board’s September work session.
The board took the complaint seriously and, following lengthy discussions, decided to do away with all religious content in the graduation program, including the traditional student invocation and the playing of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
“We thought things would be OK going forward,” Mooij said. “Some time elapsed before we heard back from this individual by way of the ACLU. The ACLU acknowledged our programmatic changes but said there were still problems with the venue.”
Pollock and Yildirim told me that if the school board and the Camp Meeting do not agree to cover up the religious symbols, they would probably recommend to their client that she file suit, either in state or federal court. The New Jersey courts might be the more likely choice. “The New Jersey constitution has more specific limitations upon the actions of a public entity like a public school,” Pollock said. However, he said, both the state and federal constitutions have a strong preference “that a public school find a place that is nonreligious, so that if you’re not of that religion you don’t feel excluded.”
Mooij said holding the graduation in the auditorium was important to the school because it “has historic significance and status” and also because of the large number of people it can accommodate. “We print 3,000 tickets every year,” he said, “so families can bring not only moms and dads and siblings but grandparents and aunts and uncles. To get 3,000 seats anywhere else, this community would have to travel a considerable distance.”
He said it was unclear how long the school has been holding its graduations there, but “our high school secretary’s father is 91, and he graduated there. And he said his was not the first class to do so.”
The grandmother who initiated the challenge has no relatives graduating from Neptune High this year, her two attorneys said, but she does have relatives scheduled to graduate next year.
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