Opinion ID: 708076
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prayer at Curricular and Extra-Curricular Activities

Text: 11 The district court enjoined DISD, its employees and its agents from: 12 1. leading, encouraging, promoting, or participating in prayers with or among students during curricular or extracurricular activities, including before, during, or after school-related sporting events. Students, however, are not enjoined from praying, either individually or in groups. Students may voluntarily pray together, provided such prayer is not done with school participation or supervision. 13 DISD argues that the district court erred by forbidding DISD employees from participating in or supervising student-initiated prayers. We will address each asserted error separately.
14 DISD contends that it cannot prevent its employees from participating in student prayers without violating their employees' rights to the free exercise of religion, to association, and to free speech and academic freedom. We do not agree. As we noted in Doe I,  'the principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed by the Establishment Clause.'  994 F.2d at 165 (quoting Lee, 505 U.S. at 586-87, 112 S.Ct. at 2655). See also Berger v. Rensselaer Central School Corp., 982 F.2d 1160, 1168 (7th Cir.1993) (free expression rights must bow to the Establishment Clause prohibition on school-endorsed religious activities). This is particularly true in the instant context of basketball practices and games. The challenged prayers take place during school-controlled, curriculum-related activities that members of the basketball team are required to attend. During these activities DISD coaches and other school employees are present as representatives of the school and their actions are representative of DISD policies. See Bishop v. Aronov, 926 F.2d 1066, 1073 (11th Cir.1991) (a teacher's [religious] speech can be taken as directly and deliberately representative of the school). DISD representatives' participation in these prayers improperly entangles it in religion and signals an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. See also Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 251, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 2372-73, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990) (quoting Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 584, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2577-78, 96 L.Ed.2d 510 (1987)) (EAA valid because it expressly forbids teacher participation and avoids the problems of 'the students' emulation of teachers as role models' ). 4 15 For these reasons, we find that the district court did not err in enjoining DISD employees and agents from participating in student-initiated prayers.
16 DISD contends that the district court's statement that [s]tudents may voluntarily pray together, provided such prayer is not done with school participation or supervision contradicts the Supreme Court's holding in Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990). 17 In Mergens, the Supreme Court upheld the Equal Access Act (EAA) requirement that a non-curricular student prayer group be given the same access to school facilities as other student groups. Under the EAA, school employees can be present at these religious meetings for custodial purposes. Id. at 253, 110 S.Ct. at 2373-74. 18 However, as we explained in Doe I, Mergens does not apply to the type of activities at issue here. 994 F.2d at 164-65. The facts before us do not even vaguely resemble a Mergens situation. Membership on the basketball team is at least extra-curricular: it is directly related to the school's physical education classes and students receive academic credit for their participation. The games are school-sponsored and -controlled events that do not provide any sort of open forum for student expression and DISD makes no claim that it has created such a forum for its basketball team or any other athletic group. Because neither the injunction nor the facts of this case purport to address a genuine Mergens situation, we decline to do so here. 19 We also note that Jones II does not require a different result. Jones II upheld a school resolution which permitted high school students to choose whether to have a student volunteer deliver a non-sectarian and non-proselytizing invocation and benediction during high school graduation. In concluding that this resolution did not violate the Establishment Clause, we emphasized that high school graduation is a significant, once-in-alifetime event that could be appropriately marked with a prayer, that the students involved were mature high school seniors, and that the challenged prayer was to be non-sectarian and non-proselytizing. 977 F.2d at 966-972. Here, we are dealing with a setting that is far less solemn and extraordinary, a quintessentially Christian prayer, and students of twelve years of age (the age at which Jane Doe first encountered basketball team prayers). These facts place the prayer at issue here in a materially different position than the one we permitted in Jones II.