Title: State Ex Rel. McLemore v. Clarksville School
Citation: 636 S.W.2d 706
Docket Number: N/A
State: Tennessee
Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court
Date: August 2, 1982

636 S.W.2d 706 (1982) STATE of Tennessee, ex rel. Brooks McLEMORE, Attorney General and Reporter for the State of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CLARKSVILLE SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY, Dr. W. Roy Stewart, President, Clarksville School of Theology, Ernestine King Stewart, Roy Machen, George H.W. Phillipp, and Frank G. Ester, Individually and as Officers of Administration, Clarksville School of Theology, Defendants-Appellants. Supreme Court of Tennessee. August 2, 1982. *707 Paul Welker, Clarksville, Thomas R. McCoy, Nashville, for defendants-appellants. Frank J. Scanlon, Asst. Atty. Gen., for plaintiff-appellee; William M. Leech, Jr., Atty. Gen., Nashville, of counsel. BROCK, Justice. The Clarksville School of Theology is a postsecondary degree-granting school of theology which has not complied with the requirements for degree-granting institutions established by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission pursuant to the Postsecondary Education Authorization Act of 1974, T.C.A., § 49-3901 et seq. The Attorney General, as authorized and directed by T.C.A., § 49-3924, brought this action for declaratory and injunctive relief seeking to prohibit the Clarksville School of Theology from granting degrees until it shall meet the requirements of the Act. The School contends that application of the Act to it would deprive it of its right of free exercise of religion, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and by Art. I, Section 3, of the Tennessee Constitution. The School alleges that its budget will not permit it to meet the criteria of the Act and that it will be forced out of business if required to do so; it alleges further that, if it is not permitted to grant degrees, enrollments of students will decline so greatly that it will be forced out of business. The State contends that the granting of degrees is a purely secular activity and in no way affects the free exercise of religion by the appellants and, therefore, that the School should be required to comply with the law. Upon an earlier appeal in this case, we remanded the cause to the trial court for further development of the facts. Upon the remand, a full evidentiary hearing was conducted, resulting in a well documented and detailed finding of fact and conclusions of law contained in a memorandum opinion filed by Judge Boaz, which, in pertinent part, we adopt as a part of this opinion, and is as follows: *709 If the Act placed a burden upon the free exercise of religion by the defendants or posed a threat of entanglement between the affairs of the church and the state, the state would be required to show that "some compelling state interest" justified the burden and that there exists no less restrictive or entangling alternative. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 83 S. Ct. 1790, 10 L. Ed. 2d 965 (1963); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S. Ct. 1526, 32 L. Ed. 2d 15 (1972). We conclude, however, that this Act places neither a direct nor indirect burden upon the free exercise of religion by the defendants nor threatens an entanglement between the affairs of church and state. As the Chancellor noted in his memorandum opinion, above quoted, the Act does not regulate the beliefs, practices or teachings of any institution; it merely sets forth minimum standards which must be met in order for an institution to be authorized to issue degrees. Moreover, the evidence shows that the granting of degrees is a purely secular activity. It is only this activity that brings the School under the regulation of the Act. The distinction between teaching and the granting of degrees or other educational credentials was well stated by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in Shelton College v. State Bd. of Ed., 48 N.J. 501, 226 A.2d 612 (1967), in rejecting a claim that the First Amendment prohibited the state from regulating degree-granting institutions of learning. We quote approvingly therefrom the following: As noted by the Chancellor, no proof has been offered in this case that operation of the Clarksville School of Theology is required by religious beliefs of the defendants; but, if such were the case, the application of this Act would only prohibit the granting of degrees by them and would not interfere with the content or methods of instruction. The School can choose to not *710 comply with the Act and yet may continue to train ministers as it chooses; such noncompliance with the Act will simply prohibit the School from granting degrees. Appellants rely upon Catholic Bishop of Chicago v. N.L.R.B., 559 F.2d 1112 (7th Cir.1977), aff'd on statutory grounds, 440 U.S. 490, 99 S. Ct. 1313, 59 L. Ed. 2d 533 (1979); Caulfield v. Hirsch, 410 F. Supp. 618 (1976); and Surinach v. Pesquera de Busquets, 604 F.2d 73 (1st Cir.1979). We have examined these authorities and find that none of them is applicable to the case before the Court. In the Catholic Bishop of Chicago case it was held that the National Labor Relations Board does not have jurisdiction to hear cases involving labor disputes in parochial schools. The United States Court of Appeals reasoned that the exercise of jurisdiction by the Board could inhibit the authority of the Bishops to maintain the schools in accordance with ecclesiastical doctrine because the Board could charge unfair labor practices in the event the Bishop choose to terminate a teacher's employment because of the religious content of his or her teaching. In the Caulfield case it was held that the N.L.R.B. did not have jurisdiction over parochial schools, citing and relying upon the Catholic Bishop of Chicago case. In both of these cases, government regulations could have affected the degree of religious teaching, whereas, in the instant case the statute merely sets out minimum standards for the granting of degrees and in no way affects the degree of religious content in the classroom. In the Surinach case the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit prohibited the Puerto Rico Department of Consumer Affairs from subpoenaing financial information from the Catholic church respecting the operational costs of its parochial schools. The court there concluded: The court expressed the fear that the gathering of the information sought by the government was merely "a first step" and that the Department could attempt to impose ceilings upon expenditures of the schools which would amount to excessive government entanglement with religion and interfere with the religious objective of the maintenance of excellence in Catholic schools. No such interference by the state with the financial affairs of the Clarksville School of Theology is posed in the instant case. In our view, none of these authorities supports the position of the appellants in this case. T.C.A., § 49-3904(d), specifically exempts: The Clarksville School of Theology would qualify for this exemption if it did not offer its program as leading toward "educational credentials" which are defined by T.C.A., § 49-3903, to include "degrees" or "diplomas"; but, as long as it does offer such "credentials" the Clarksville School of Theology is subject to regulation by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission and the minimum standards for authorization set forth in Chapter 1540-1-2 of the Official Compilation, Rules and Regulations of the State of Tennessee. It is established in the evidence that granting a degree is not a part of the Clarksville School of Theology's religious beliefs and is not considered by it to be religious activity. Indeed, the President and founder of the School testified that getting a degree was not a tenet of faith followed by the School. Nevertheless, the School contends that application of the statute to it has an indirect effect on its religious activity of educating ministers. It contends that the effect confronts it with two choices: (1) If it continues to award degrees, it would have to comply with the Tennessee Higher Education Commission *711 regulations which, it contends, it cannot and would not be able to do and, thus, would have to close its doors or (2) if it stopped awarding degrees, no one would desire to attend the School and, again, it would slowly cease to exist. Therefore, the School claims that the Act indirectly prohibits it from carrying on the religious activity of training ministers. Nevertheless, the fact remains that the State is merely regulating the awarding of educational degrees. The supposed predicament of the School is not a result of the state's regulation of its religious function of training ministers but of its pre-eminent role of awarding degrees which is, as conceded by its President and founder, a purely secular activity. The reliance of the appellants upon Sherbert v. Verner, supra; Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra; and McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618, 98 S. Ct. 1322, 55 L. Ed. 2d 593 (1978), is misplaced. In each of these cases, the effect of the state law was to impose an indirect burden upon the right of free exercise of religion. For example, in Sherbert the South Carolina statute forced the citizen to choose between her right to receive unemployment benefits and her right to practice her religion by keeping Saturday as the Sabbath. Said the court: The statute here under consideration does not require any individual to violate religious convictions. The Clarksville School of Theology does not claim as a tenet of its religion that its ministers should receive academic degrees. Thus, no Sherbert, Yoder, or McDaniel type of dilemma is posed in the instant case. We find no constitutional infirmity in the statute; the decree of the trial court is affirmed. Costs incurred on appeal are taxed against the appellants. HARBISON, C.J., and FONES, COOPER and DROWOTA, JJ., concur.