Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf
Page Number: 34.0

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

29 

Opinion of the Court 

not the same thing as coercing others to participate in it. 
See Town of Greece, 572 U. S., at 589 (plurality opinion).  It 
is a rule, too, that would undermine a long constitutional 
tradition under which learning how to tolerate diverse ex-
pressive activities has always been “part of learning how to 
live in a pluralistic society.”  Lee, 505 U. S., at 590.  We are 
aware of no historically sound understanding of the Estab-
lishment Clause that begins to “mak[e] it necessary for gov-
ernment to be hostile to religion” in this way.  Zorach, 343 
U. S., at 314. 

Our  judgments  on  all  these  scores  find  support  in  this
Court’s prior cases too.  In Zorach, for example, challengers
argued that a public school program permitting students to
spend time in private religious instruction off campus was 
impermissibly  coercive.  Id.,  at  308,  311–312.    The  Court 
rejected that challenge because students were not required 
to  attend  religious  instruction  and  there  was  no  evidence
that  any  employee  had  “us[ed]  their  office  to  persuade  or 
force  students”  to  participate  in  religious  activity.    Id.,  at 
311, and n. 6.  What was clear there is even more obvious 
here—where  there  is  no  evidence  anyone  sought  to  per-
suade or force students to participate, and there is no for-
mal school program accommodating the religious activity at 
issue. 

Meanwhile,  this  case  looks  very  different  from  those  in 
which this Court has found prayer involving public school
students to be problematically coercive.  In Lee, this Court 
held that school officials violated the Establishment Clause 
by  “including  [a]  clerical  membe[r]”  who  publicly  recited
prayers “as part of [an] official school graduation ceremony” 
because the school had “in every practical sense compelled 
attendance and participation in” a “religious exercise.”  505 
U. S., at 580, 598.  In Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. 
Doe, the Court held that a school district violated the Es-
tablishment Clause by broadcasting a prayer “over the pub-
lic  address  system”  before  each  football  game.  530  U. S.