Opinion ID: 356147
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Effect Of The Guidelines

Text: 23 The effect of the school board's guidelines is also a constitutionally proscribed one. While the Supreme Court permits accommodation of religion in certain instances, it has generally strived for more precise principles to evaluate each promotion of a religious interest. One principle began developing in Everson v. Board of Education, 1947, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711, when Justice Black asserted that neither a state nor the federal government can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. 330 U.S. at 15, 67 S.Ct. at 511, 91 L.Ed. at 723. The nondiscrimination principle embodied within this phrase has been reaffirmed several times. 15 Torcaso v. Watkins, 1961, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982, expanded the principle, arguing that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally . . . pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers. . . . 367 U.S. at 495, 81 S.Ct. at 1683, 6 L.Ed.2d at 987. Finally, the Supreme Court declared in Gillette v. United States, 1971, 401 U.S. 437, 91 S.Ct. 828, 28 L.Ed.2d 168, that the Establishment Clause stands at least for the proposition that when government activities touch on the religious sphere, they must be secular in purpose, evenhanded in operation, and neutral in primary impact. 401 U.S. at 450, 91 S.Ct. at 836, 28 L.Ed.2d at 181. These cases outline a non-discriminatory impact principle that requires state action to be neither facially discriminatory nor discriminatory in impact. The Orange County school board's guidelines offend this principle and thereby violate the Establishment Clause. 16 24 First, the guidelines facially apply only to religious books and literature thereby discriminating between religion and nonreligion. More significant, more than just being discriminatorily selective, this shows that the guidelines were not intended to assure a source of religious works for study as literature for their literary qualities. Equally important, the guidelines expressly relate to such religious material provided or offered by outsiders. Thus, the Board has established by regulation a formalized system for the distribution of religious literature without making any similar provision for the distribution of secular literature. 17 Additionally, as applied the guidelines advance particularly the Gideon faith. Only the Gideons initially in 1970 requested permission to distribute religious literature. Only the Gideons have made repeated requests for permission to distribute religious literature. Only the Gideons have utilized the distribution scheme established by the guidelines. Finally, the guidelines are uniquely tailored to the Gideon movement which has as one of its principle missions the distribution of Bibles. 25 Because the guidelines, and operations thereunder, inevitably encourages proselytization both are equally vulnerable. Indeed, in its most innocent purpose, the Board intended that all faiths be given, free of cost, facilities and space together with a large group of prospective readers to compete with other faiths for the minds and wills of these children. The state was thus providing space, facilities, and most important, a large audience. 18 Moreover, with over 48,000 Bibles distributed the plain desire of the Gideons was to proselytize believers or nonbelievers into acceptance of their theological beliefs. 26 The conclusion that the Board's guidelines have an impermissible effect is bolstered by precedent. The leading case to consider the issue of the constitutionality of Bible distribution to public school children is Tudor v. Board of Education, 1953, 14 N.J. 31, 100 A.2d 857, 45 A.L.R.2d 729, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 816, 75 S.Ct. 25, 99 L.Ed. 644. In that case the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the distribution of Gideon Bibles to public school children was unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that the public school machinery is used to bring about the distribution of these Bibles to the children . . .. In the eyes of the pupils and their parents the Board of Education has placed its stamp of approval upon the distribution and, in fact, upon the Gideon Bible itself. . . . The school's part in this distribution is an active one and cannot be sustained on the basis of a mere assistance to religion. 14 N.J. at 51, 100 A.2d at 868, 45 A.L.R.2d at 741. The similar holdings by two other courts in Goodwin v. Cross County School District, E.D.Ark., 1973, 394 F.Supp. 417, and Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 1960, Fla.App., 128 So.2d 181, were grounded on the Tudor rationale. In the present case the periodic announcements of the availability of the religious literature reinforces the Board's imprimatur of the Gideon Bible. 27 These comments are an extension of Engel v. Vitale, 1962, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601, where the Supreme Court, without the citation of a single case and with only a single dissent, struck down a New York school board's requirement that an official state nondenominational prayer be recited in the public schools at the beginning of each day. In Engel the Court found that it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers and that government should leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. 370 U.S. at 425, 435, 82 S.Ct. at 1264, 1269, 8 L.Ed.2d at 605, 610. Similarly, in the present case it is not the business of government to endorse religion by maintaining on school premises a location for the distribution of religious literature brought into the school by members who unquestionably seek to persuade others to their particular faith. The desire of these outsiders whose gifts are accepted by the school belies its impact: it is offered to persuade, to influence adoption of a faith. 28