Opinion ID: 719595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Primary Effect of Advancing Religion.

Text: 98 In ascertaining whether the primary effect of the School's recognition would be to advance religion, the Court's analysis in Mergens and Amos is once again dispositive. In Mergens, the critical inquiry was whether the school endorsed the religious speech. 496 U.S. at 250, 110 S.Ct. at 2371. The Court specified that disclaimers of the type already devised by Roslyn High would guarantee that no reasonable student could conclude that the school was using its activities and influence to advance religion. Id. at 251, 110 S.Ct. at 2372. And as the Mergens Court made clear, the conduct of religious exercises in a school, with the school's sanction and under its aegis, does not have the primary effect of advancing religion. Id. at 250-52, 110 S.Ct. at 2371-73. Nor is it impermissible, according to Mergens, for a club engaging in after-school prayers to have access to the school's bulletin boards, public address system, and newspaper. Id. at 247, 252, 110 S.Ct. at 2370, 2373. Finally, the Mergens Court has already found it immaterial that the religious club's announcements would have a captive audience composed of students who are required to attend school under compulsory attendance laws. Id. at 249-52, 110 S.Ct. at 2371-73; cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 597-99, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 2661, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992) (impermissible for public high school to have rabbi give opening prayer at graduation ceremony, because the State has in every practical sense compelled attendance and participation in an explicit religious exercise at an event of singular importance to every student, one the objecting student had no real alternative to avoid). 99 The School and the Anti-Defamation League raise all of these arguments anew. There is no indication, however, that the religious activities of the Walking on Water Club will be any different from the religious activities of the Bible club at issue in Mergens. The Walking on Water Club may fill an after-school classroom with musical prayers, solicit new members with posters, or announce its meetings over the public address system. But these activities do not distinguish the Club in any meaningful way from the club in Mergens; nor do they suggest that recognition of the Walking on Water Club would have the primary effect of advancing religion. 100 The salient difference between this case and Mergens, of course, is the dispensation that the Club needs with respect to the School's nondiscrimination policy. But exempting the Club from the nondiscrimination policy simply puts the Club on the same footing as non-religious clubs who make distinctions among their members on the basis of commitment. In this situation, an exemption is a policy of neutrality. See supra section III.C. 101 Even if the exemption from the nondiscrimination policy is viewed as a benefit, enjoyed only by the Walking on Water Club (and other sectarian religious clubs), there still is no Establishment Clause violation. As the Court explained in Amos, the flow of a benefit only to a religious group does not mean that the government's actions are advancing religion. The School--like Congress in enacting § 702 of the Civil Rights Act--would simply be allow[ing the Club] to advance religion. 483 U.S. at 337, 107 S.Ct. at 2869. The exemption here provides a benefit to a religious group, as did the property tax exemption upheld by the Court in Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970). As in Walz, the benefit means that the religious group can do something it could not do before, and as a result may be able to better advance its religion. But allowing people with religious faith to advance their religions is not what is meant by the establishment of religion, as the Court made clear in Walz: for the authors of the Religion Clauses, the 'establishment' of religion connoted sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity. 397 U.S. at 668, 90 S.Ct. at 1411; see also Amos, 483 U.S. at 337, 107 S.Ct. at 2869. In other words, the state action itself must constitute an endorsement of religion. Cf. Mergens, 496 U.S. at 250, 110 S.Ct. at 2371 ([T]here is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect.). Since the exemption from the School's policy simply allows the Club to pursue a leadership policy that it reasonably considers critical to its ability to hold religious meetings at the school, and since Mergens decided that allowing such meetings does not constitute a state endorsement or advancement of religion, the exemption cannot be considered an endorsement by the School of the Hsus' religion or the Club's leadership policy. There is no showing that the exemption of the Walking on Water Club would constitute an endorsement of its activities. Absent such a showing, we can only conclude that the exemption would not have the primary effect of advancing religion. 27 102