Opinion ID: 3013005
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Correct Establishment Clause Framework

Text: We must first determine the appropriate framework to use when analyzing whether the Ten Commandments plaque violates the Establishment Clause, an inquiry that is somewhat murky, even in light of the recent religious display cases decided by the Supreme Court. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court set forth three factors that should be considered when a violation of the Establishment Clause is alleged: (1) whether the government practice had a secular purpose; (2) whether its principal or primary effect advanced or inhibited religion; and (3) whether it created an excessive entanglement of the government with religion. 403 U.S. 602, 612-613 (1971). That decision has received much criticism. See, e.g., Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 398-399 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring) (comparing Lemon to “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed 16 and buried” and collecting opinions) and the cases identified in the margin.4 Writing in a separate concurrence in Lynch v. Donnelly, a case involving a nativity scene included in the defendant city’s Christmas display, Justice O’Connor proposed a clarification of the Lemon factors to be used in cases involving the display of religious objects by private groups on government property: The central issue in this case is whether [the defendant] has endorsed Christianity by its display of the creche. To answer that question, we must examine both what [the defendant] intended to communicate in displaying the creche and what message the city’s display actually conveyed. The purpose and effect prongs of the Lemon test represent these two aspects of the meaning of the city’s action. . . . 4. Other sitting Supreme Court Justices have also criticized Lemon, suggesting that Lemon might be overruled if it were reconsidered. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit laid out the criticisms of Lemon made by current Supreme Court Justices in Books v. City of Elkhart, 235 F.3d 292, 301, n. 6 (2000); Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 319 (2000) (Rehnquist, C.J., dissenting) (stating that “Lemon has had a checkered career in the decisional law of this Court” and collecting opinions criticizing Lemon); County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 655-56 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part) (stating that, although he found the Lemon test useful in judging the constitutionality of holiday displays, he did “not wish to be seen as advocating, let alone adopting, that test as our primary guide in this difficult area”); Committee for Pub. Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646, 671 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (desiring to avoid “continuing with the sisyphean task of trying to patch together the ‘blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier’ described in Lemon”) (citation omitted). Moreover, Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissented from the denial of certiorari in Books v. City of Elkhart, criticizing the Seventh Circuit for “applying the oft-criticized framework set out in Lemon.” 532 U.S. 1058 (2001). However, since Lemon has not been explicitly overruled, we are bound to follow either it or the subsequent “endorsement” test which modifies and explains Lemon. See discussion in text. 17 The purpose prong of the Lemon test requires that a government activity have a secular purpose. That requirement is not satisfied, however, by the mere existence of some secular purpose, however dominated by religious purposes. . . . The proper inquiry under the purpose prong of Lemon, I submit, is whether the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion. . . . Focusing on the evil of government endorsement or disapproval of religion makes clear that the effect prong of the Lemon test is properly interpreted not to require invalidation of a government practice merely because it in fact causes, even as a primary effect, advancement or inhibition of religion. . . . What is crucial is that a government practice not have the effect of communicating a message of government endorsement or disapproval of religion. 465 U.S. 668, 690-92 (1984) (O’Connor, J., concurring). Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in Lynch is particularly significant because it decided the outcome of the case; without her vote the justices were split four to four.5 In a later concurrence, Justice O’Connor explained that to determine whether a display endorses religion, it is necessary to ask whether “a reasonable observer would view [the display] . . . as a disapproval of his or her particular religious choices.” County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 631 (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring).6 5. Chief Justice Burger delivered the opinion of the Court in Lynch, which was joined by Justices White, Powell, Rehnquist and O’Connor. Justice O’Connor filed a concurring opinion. Justice Brennan filed a dissenting opinion which Justices Marshall, Blackmun and Stevens joined. Justice Blackmun filed a dissenting opinion which Justice Stevens joined. 6. Justice Blackmun announced the judgment of the Court in Allegheny and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts III-A, IV, and V, which Justices Brennan, Marshall, Stevens, and O’Connor joined, an opinion with respect to Parts I and II, which Justices Stevens and O’Connor joined, an opinion with respect to Part III-B, which Justice 18 The test originally proposed by Justice O’Connor in her concurrence in Lynch, described above, has become known as the “endorsement” test, and has been adopted by the majority in other religious display cases. For example, Justice Blackmun, writing the opinion for the Court in Allegheny, a case involving the display of a creche and a menorah, concluded: In recent years, we have paid particularly close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of “endorsing” religion, a concern that has long had a place in our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. . . . [T]he concurrence [O’Connor’s in Lynch] articulates a method for determining whether the government’s use of an object with religious meaning has the effect of endorsing religion. The effect of the display depends upon the message that the government’s practice communicates: the question is “what viewers may fairly understand to be the purpose of the display.” That inquiry, of necessity, turns upon the context in which the contested object appears. . . . Since Lynch, the Court has made clear that, when evaluating the effect of government conduct under the Establishment Clause, we must ascertain whether “the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling Stevens joined, an opinion with respect to Part VII, which Justice O’Connor joined, and an opinion with respect to Part VI. Justice O’Connor filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in Part II which Justices Brennan and Stevens joined. Justice Brennan filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, which Justices Marshall and Stevens joined. Justice Stevens filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, which Justices Brennan and Marshall joined. Justice Kennedy filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, which Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices White and Scalia joined. 19 denominations as an endorsement, and by the nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices.” 492 U.S. at 592-598 (internal citations omitted). In Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette, Justice Scalia also acknowledged the use of the “endorsement” test in religious display cases, although the Court held in that case that the defendant city would not violate the Establishment Clause by allowing a display of a cross by the Ku Klux Klan in a public forum: Where we have tested for endorsement of religion, the subject of the test was either expression by the government itself, or else government action alleged to discriminate in favor of private religious expression or activity. The test petitioners propose, which would attribute to a neutrally behaving government private religious expression, has no antecedent in our jurisprudence, and would better be called a “transferred endorsement” test. 515 U.S. 753, 764 (1995) (internal citations omitted) (emphasis in original).7 In view of the foregoing, this Court has not surprisingly concluded, based on the cited caselaw, that the relevant inquiry in determining whether a religious display violates the Establishment Clause is whether a reasonable observer would perceive the display as a government endorsement of religion: 7. In Capitol Square, Justice Scalia announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III, which Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, and Breyer joined, and an opinion with respect to Part IV, which Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Kennedy and Thomas joined. Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Justice O’Connor filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, which Justices Souter and Breyer joined. Justice Souter filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, which Justices O’Connor and Breyer joined. Justices Stevens and Ginsburg filed dissenting opinions. 20 Recent Supreme Court decisions . . . have not applied the Lemon test. Instead, in cases involving Establishment Clause challenges to private individuals’ use of government resources, the Court has applied the endorsement test developed by Justice O’Connor, which dispenses with the “entanglement” prong of the Lemon test and collapses its “purpose” and “effect” prongs into a single inquiry: would a reasonable, informed observer, i.e., one familiar with the history and context of private individuals’ access to the public money or property at issue, perceive the challenged government action as endorsing religion? Tenafly Eruv Assoc., Inc. v. Borough of Tenafly, 309 F.3d 144, 174 (3d Cir. 2002).8 Under the “endorsement” approach, the knowledge attributed to the “reasonable observer” becomes critical. Justice O’Connor describes her view (contrasting it with the differing view of Justice Stevens): In my view, proper application of the endorsement test requires that the reasonable observer be deemed more informed than the casual passerby postulated by Justice Stevens. . . . I therefore disagree that the endorsement test should focus on the actual perception of individual observers, who naturally have differing degrees of knowledge. Under such an approach, a religious display is necessarily precluded so long as some passersby would perceive a governmental endorsement thereof. In my view, however, the endorsement test creates a more collective standard to gauge “the ‘objective’ meaning of the [government’s] statement in the community.” In this respect, the applicable observer is similar to the “reasonable person” in tort law, who “is not to be identified with any ordinary individual, who might occasionally do unreasonable things,” but is “rather a 8. In Agostini v. Felton, a school funding case, the Supreme Court held that the “entanglement” prong of Lemon was “an aspect of the inquiry into [the] effect.” 521 U.S. 203, 233 (1997). 21 personification of a community ideal of reasonable behavior, determined by the [collective] social judgment.” Thus, “we do not ask whether there is any person who could find an endorsement of religion, whether some people may be offended by the display, or whether some reasonable person might think [the State] endorses religion.” . . . It is for this reason that the reasonable observer in the endorsement inquiry must be deemed aware of the history and context of the community and forum in which the religious display appears. As I explained in Allegheny, “the ‘history and ubiquity’ of a practice is relevant because it provides part of the context in which a reasonable observer evaluates whether a challenged governmental practice conveys a message of endorsement of religion.” Nor can the knowledge attributed to the reasonable observer be limited to the information gleaned simply from viewing the challenged display. . . . In my view, our hypothetical observer also should know the general history of the place in which the cross is displayed. Indeed, the fact that Capitol Square is a public park that has been used over time by private speakers of various types is as much a part of the display’s context as its proximity to the Ohio Statehouse. This approach does not require us to assume an “ ‘ultrareasonable observer’ who understands the vagaries of this Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence.” An informed member of the community will know how the public space in question has been used in the past — and it is that fact, not that the space may meet the legal definition of a public forum, which is relevant to the endorsement inquiry. Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 779-781 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (internal citations omitted). This Court has adopted Justice O’Connor’s view that a reasonable observer must be presumed to have an understanding of the general history of the display and the 22 community in which it is displayed; the reasonable observer is more knowledgeable than the uninformed passerby. In ACLU of New Jersey v. Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education, we held that “ ‘the “history and ubiquity” of a practice is relevant because it provides part of the context in which a reasonable observer evaluates whether a challenged governmental practice conveys a message of endorsement of religion.’ ” 84 F.3d 1471, 1486 (3d Cir. 1996) (quoting Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 630 (O’Connor, J., concurring)). And in ACLU v. Schundler, 168 F.3d 92, 107 (3d Cir. 1999), we cited favorably Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in Capitol Square, set forth supra, and held that “in evaluating the message conveyed by the modified . . . display to a reasonable observer, the general scope of [the city’s] practice regarding diverse cultural displays and celebrations should be considered.” See also Tenafly, 309 F.3d at 174 (asking whether “a reasonable, informed observer, i.e., one familiar with the history and context of private individuals’ access to the public money or property at issue, [would] perceive the challenged government action as endorsing religion?”). Thus, when evaluating whether the Ten Commandments plaque is an endorsement of religion by the County, we ask whether the plaque “sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 773 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment (citing Lynch, 465 U.S. at 688 (O’Connor, J., concurring), and Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 628 (O’Connor, J., concurring)).9 In 9. The County argues that if we do not reverse the decision of the District Court, we should at least remand because the District Court did not apply the “endorsement” test when evaluating the Ten Commandments plaque; instead, the County maintains, the District Court applied the Lemon test mechanically, inquiring into the purpose and effect of the display. However, because “we may affirm a correct decision of the district court on grounds other than those relied upon by the district court,” Central Pennsylvania Teamsters Pensions Fund v. McCormick Dray Line, Inc., 85 F.3d 1098, 1107 (3d Cir. 1996) (citing University of Maryland v. Peat Marwick Main & Co., 923 F.2d 265, 275 (3d Cir. 1991)), we will simply consider whether the outcome was correct (using the framework laid out in the text) and not whether the District Court employed the wrong framework. 23 so doing, we will assume that the reasonable observer is informed about the approximate age of the plaque and the fact that the County has done nothing with the plaque since it was erected; we also conclude that the reasonable observer is aware of the general history of Chester County. We address (and reject) in the margin Chester County’s argument that we should afford a presumption of constitutionality for historic monuments and artifacts.10 10. Chester County maintains that this is a case of first impression based on the fact that neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has dealt with an Establishment Clause case involving an historic religious display. The County notes that the cases in which the “endorsement” test has been invoked involve recent displays (generally temporary holiday displays). The County then suggests that we should afford a presumption of constitutionality for historic monuments and artifacts; under the County’s test, an historic artifact (like the Ten Commandments plaque here) would violate the Establishment Clause only if there was no secular purpose for erecting the plaque, or if the display is accompanied by impermissible current government conduct. If we decline to adopt such a presumption, the County maintains, courts following this opinion will be forced to purge many longstanding religious references. However, we are not persuaded by this “slippery slope” argument. Indeed, Justice O’Connor in Allegheny responded to a similar criticism of her “endorsement” test raised by Justice Kennedy: Justice Kennedy submits that the endorsement test is inconsistent with our precedents and traditions because, in his words, if it were “applied without artificial exceptions for historical practice,” it would invalidate many traditional practices recognizing the role of religion in our society. This criticism shortchanges both the endorsement test itself and my explanation of the reason why certain longstanding government acknowledgments of religion do not, under that test, convey a message of endorsement. Practices such as legislative prayers or opening Court sessions with “God save the United States and this honorable Court” serve the secular purposes of “solemnizing public occasions” and “expressing confidence in the future.” These examples of ceremonial deism do not survive Establishment Clause scrutiny simply by virtue of their historical longevity alone. Historical acceptance of a practice does not in itself validate that practice under the Establishment Clause if the practice violates the values protected by that Clause, just as historical acceptance of racial or gender based discrimination does not immunize such practices from scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment. 24 Under the “endorsement” approach, we do not consider the County’s purpose in determining whether a religious display has violated the Establishment Clause; instead, we focus on the effect of the display on the reasonable observer, inquiring whether the reasonable observer would perceive it as an endorsement of religion. However, in view of the possibility that a higher court may prefer to analyze the constitutionality of this plaque under the traditional Lemon purpose and effect inquiry, we will now briefly consider how to evaluate the County’s purpose. See Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 585 (1987) (“ ‘The purpose prong of the Lemon test asks whether government’s actual purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion.’ ” (quoting Lynch, 465 U.S. at 690) (O’Connor, J., . . . Under the endorsement test, the “history and ubiquity” of a practice is relevant not because it creates an “artificial exception” from that test. On the contrary, the “history and ubiquity” of a practice is relevant because it provides part of the context in which a reasonable observer evaluates whether a challenged governmental practice conveys a message of endorsement of religion. . . . The question under endorsement analysis, in short, is whether a reasonable observer would view such longstanding practices as a disapproval of his or her particular religious choices, in light of the fact that they serve a secular purpose rather than a sectarian one and have largely lost their religious significance over time. 492 U.S. at 630-631 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Likewise, we conclude that by considering the history of a religious display as part of the context in which the reasonable observer views the display, we will ensure that courts following this opinion will not be forced to hold that benign and longstanding religious references are unconstitutional; instead courts should examine the age and relevant history surrounding the use of the display as part of the context in which the reasonable observer views it. At the same time, by stressing that history is only part of the context of a display, and not giving a presumption of constitutionality to historic artifacts or monuments, we ensure that displays that do have the effect of endorsing religion are not held to be constitutional simply because of their age. 25 concurring)). We also believe that this is a prudent approach considering the fact that other Courts of Appeals presented with similar issues have applied the Lemon test, and considered the purpose as well as the effect of the display. See, e.g., King v. Richmond County, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 10943 (11th Cir. 2003); Adland v. Russ, 307 F.3d 471 (6th Cir. 2002), cert. denied, 71 U.S.L.W. 3568 and 71 U.S.L.W. 3678 (U.S. April 28, 2003) (No. 02-1241); Books v. City of Elkhart, 235 F.3d 292 (7th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, 532 U.S. 1058 (2001). In our view, any inquiry into the County’s purpose would require consideration not only of the County’s original purpose for displaying the plaque in 1920, but also of the Commissioners’ purpose for leaving the plaque in place in 2001, when Flynn requested that it be removed. There is support for this view in other Courts of Appeals. See, e.g., Books, 235 F.3d at 302 (holding that although the monument’s purpose was not secular, “[i]n determining whether this particular display of the Ten Commandments can be said to have a secular purpose, we must evaluate the totality of the circumstances surrounding the placement and maintenance of the monument.”) (emphasis added). Since the purpose prong of Lemon only requires some secular purpose, and not “that the purposes of the display are ‘exclusively secular,’ ” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 681 n. 6, we conclude that the articulation of a legitimate secular purpose for declining to remove the plaque in 2001 would satisfy the first prong of Lemon, the requirement that there be a secular purpose for the display. See also Edwards, 482 U.S. at 586-87 (noting that courts “normally defer[ ]” to “articulation of a secular purpose” that is “sincere and not a sham”). Although the County’s original purpose for affixing the plaque to the facade of the Courthouse would certainly inform the determination of whether the stated purpose for leaving it in place was a sham, we conclude that the primary focus should be on the events of 2001, when the County refused Flynn’s request. This is consistent with our view of the “endorsement” test, in which we also focus on the events of 2001; we presume that the reasonable observer views the plaque in or around 2001 26 and is aware of the age and history of the plaque and the fact that the County has done nothing to celebrate or highlight it. It would not make sense for us to focus on the present day effect of the plaque, and yet only consider the original purpose for erecting the Ten Commandments plaque.