Opinion ID: 762043
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Football Games

Text: 67 Having concluded that SFISD's modified Clear Creek Prayer Policy does not pass constitutional muster, we must next address whether the pure Clear Creek Prayer Policy embodied in the alternative fall-back provision of the policy can be extended to football games through the Football Policy. In Duncanville, we confronted virtually the identical issue. There, the district court had enjoined employees of the school district from, inter alia, supervising student-initiated, student-led prayers during athletic events. Duncanville, 70 F.3d at 406. In upholding the injunction, we distinguished Clear Creek II, stating: 68 In concluding that [the Clear Creek] resolution did not violate the Establishment Clause, we emphasized that high school graduation is a significant, once-in-a-lifetime event that could appropriately be marked with a prayer, that the students involved were mature high school seniors and the challenged prayer was to be non-sectarian and non-proselytizing. Here, we are dealing with a setting [football and basketball games] far less solemn and extraordinary, a quintessentially Christian prayer, and students of twelve years of age.... Id. 69 SFISD argues that the present case is more closely analogous to Clear Creek II than to Duncanville because in the latter the students spontaneously initiated the prayers in question, whereas here, as in Clear Creek II, they do so by vote. SFISD's argument, however, widely misses the mark. The controlling feature here is the same as in Duncanville: The prayers are to be delivered at football games--hardly the sober type of annual event that can be appropriately solemnized with prayer. The distinction to which SFISD points is simply one without difference. Regardless of whether the prayers are selected by vote or spontaneously initiated at these frequently-recurring, informal, school-sponsored events, school officials are present and have the authority to stop the prayers. Thus, as we indicated in Duncanville, our decision in Clear Creek II hinged on the singular context and singularly serious nature of a graduation ceremony. Outside that nurturing context, a Clear Creek Prayer Policy cannot survive. We therefore reverse the district court's holding that SFISD's alternative Clear Creek Prayer Policy can be extended to football games, irrespective of the presence of the nonsectarian, nonproselytizing restrictions. See Jager, 862 F.2d at 832-33 (holding equal access policy for football game invocations unconstitutional).