This is a valedictorian speech, not an audition for your stand-up comedy career.

You can make fun of school construction that was “building the future one closed hallway at a time.” These can help personalize your speech, and reference things that most of the audience will recognize.

Look for funny stories specific to your school.One style of joke is the funny inspirational quote, like Will Rogers’s “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there,” or Ben Franklin’s “You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.” These clever lines can be a good start to a speech, introducing your big theme.Just stay relaxed and confident in your delivery, and if people don’t laugh, just move on. You don’t have to be voted “Class Clown” to be able to tell a good joke. It can also briefly take people’s minds off of the bigger, weightier topics you’ll be talking about. Adding a few lines in your speech to encourage laughter will help you and your audience get comfortable. If a public school attempts to censor your graduation speech, please contact First Liberty Institute immediately for further advice and guidance.Include a few jokes. The court determined that an objective observer would perceive the speech to be approved and endorsed by the school, and therefore the school could remove the proselytizing comments to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. In one case, the Ninth Circuit (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington) determined that when school officials exercise complete control over a graduation ceremony, including student speech, that the school officials may remove proselytizing and sectarian language from a student’s graduation speech. Please note, however, that a few courts have deviated from this generally accepted rule regarding the permissibility of religious content in graduation speeches. To avoid any mistaken perception that a school endorses student or other private speech that is not in fact attributable to the school, school officials may make appropriate, neutral disclaimers to clarify that such speech (whether religious or nonreligious) is the speaker’s and not the school’s.”Ī few courts don’t follow the rest of the country. Where students or other private graduation speakers are selected on the basis of genuinely neutral, evenhanded criteria and retain primary control over the content of their expression, however, that expression is not attributable to the school and therefore may not be restricted because of its religious (or anti-religious) content. “School officials may not mandate or organize prayer at graduation or select speakers for such events in a manner that favors religious speech such as prayer. Control over the content of each address is left to the students – not the school.įor example, if the school allows the valedictorian, salutatorian, class president, and class vice-president to each speak for a certain amount of time, and the students have control over the content of their speeches, then the school cannot discriminate against students who wish to incorporate religious speech, including prayer, in their addresses.Students are selected by neutral criteria (for example, valedictorians and salutatorians are selected by GPA, or class officers are selected by a student body vote.).Students can include religious content, including prayer, in their graduation speech if:

Valedictorian speech