From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: State Universities & First Amendment
Summary: Are the Chapels at West Point and Annapolis unconstitutional?
Keywords: _McCollum v. Board of Education_, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).
Date: 31 Aug 92 14:04:43 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <92242.003036IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> IO20456@MAINE.MAINE.EDU 
(Ryan R Robbins) writes:

>I have a question on an issue that I am surprised has never been
>picked up.

>Concerning the first amendment barring Congress from making laws
>respecting establishments of religion, isn't it a violation by a
>state when a state-run university provides a room in its student
>union for mass? What about when a state rents or leases university
>land to religious groups on its college campuses? Doesn't this
>conflict with the First Amendment? Has anyone sued a state to bar
>religious institutions from holding mass on public property?
>[Ryan Robbins]

I dunno.  But in the '40's, Mrs. Vashti McCollum, the mother of
a school boy in Champaign, Illinois, challenged the constitutionality
of the "released time" program as a violation of the Ist Amendment
and XIVth Amendment.  Under that program, the Board of Education,
responding to a request from something called the "Champaign Council
on Religious education" (a voluntary association made up of members 
of the Jewish, Roman Catholic, and some Protestant denominations)
had set up a "released time" program to allow public school pupils 
in grades four to nine inclusive to be permitted to attend weekly
religious instruction, on a voluntary basis, without having to leave 
the public school premises.  

Mrs. McCollum did not like this idea.  She asked the Illinois courts 
to order the Champaign Board of Education to  

     "adopt and enforce rules and regulations prohibiting
      all instruction in and teaching of religious education
      in all public schools in Champaign School District
      Number 71, . . . and in all public school houses and
      buildings in said district when occupied by public
      schools."

When the Illnois courts turned her down, Mrs. McCollum appealed
to the U. S. Supreme Court, which heard her case on December 8,
1947.  In _McCollum v. Board of Education of Champaign, Illinois_,
333 U.S. 203 (1948), an 8-1 majority of the Court agreed with her:

     "Here not only are the State's tax-supported public school
      buildings used for the dissemination of religious doctrines.
      The State also affords sectarian groups an invaluable aid
      in that it helps to provide pupils for their religious
      classes through use of the State's compulsory public
      school machinery.  This is not separation of Church and
      State."  Ibid, at 212.

The _McCollum_ case dealt with elementary schools, not public
colleges.  When it comes to colleges, as Justice Stanley Reed
pointed out in his dissent, 

     "In the United States Naval Academy and the United States
      Military Academy, schools wholly supported and completely
      controlled by the federal government, there are a number
      of religious activities.  Chaplains are attached to both
      schools.  Attendance at church services on Sunday is
      compulsory at both the Military and Naval Academies.  At
      West Point the Protestant services are held in the Cadet
      Chapel, the Catholic in the Catholic Chapel, and the Jewish
      in the Old Cadet Chapel; at Annapolis only Protestant 
      Services are held on the reservation, midshipmen of other
      religious persuasions attend the churches of the city of
      Annapolis."  Ibid., at 254-55, Reed, J., dissenting.

It would seem from this that anyone who wants to attack a state-run
university for providing *a room* in its student union for mass
should first reckon with the federal-run United States Military
Academy for providing *three whole buildings* erected with taxpayer
funds appropriated by the Congress for the purpose of holding 
religious services.

Hope this helps.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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