Opinion ID: 683213
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lee and Collins Applied

Text: 40 The Court in Lee noted two facts that marked and controlled its decision: (1) state involvement and (2) the obligatory nature of the students' participation in the religious activity taking place at graduation. The district argues that the first controlling fact of the Lee decision, state involvement, is absent in this case. The district claims that the involvement of the seniors in place of the school district is sufficient to distinguish Lee and shield the prayers from the reach of the Establishment Clause. 41 In support, the district cites Jones v. Clear Creek Indep. Sch. Dist., 977 F.2d 963 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2950, 124 L.Ed.2d 697 (1993). Jones addressed a school district policy similar to that involved in this case. The school district gave discretion to the senior class to choose whether they would have prayers at graduation. Id. at 964, 964 n. 1. The Jones court concluded that, because the school district had engaged in no acts of state control similar to those present in Lee, the Establishment Clause did not prohibit the prayers. Id. at 970-71. The Jones court further concluded that, because the students themselves participated in the decision as to whether prayers should be said, there was less coercive effect on the students who attended graduation. Id. at 971-72. Jones also held that the school district's determination to delegate the decision to the seniors, with prayers resulting, passed the Lemon test. Id. at 966-69. 42 We are not persuaded by the reasoning in Jones. In this case, we find present both of the factors relied on by the Court in Lee. 43
44 For several reasons, we find state involvement in this case pervasive enough to offend Establishment Clause concerns. First, the school ultimately controls the event. At a high school graduation, teachers and principals must and do retain a high degree of control over the precise contents of the program, the speeches, the timing, the movements, the dress, and the decorum of the students. Lee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2660; see also Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986). Significantly, all of the parties in this case agree that the seniors have authority to make decisions regarding graduation only because the school allows them to have it. No party has argued that high school seniors, as a class, have an exclusive right to direct their high school graduation by majority vote. To the contrary, the parties appear to agree, as we do, with what Superintendent Arnzen said was a fair characterization of graduation: [T]he graduation ceremony is the presentation by the school of diplomas representing graduation certificates to the people who have fulfilled the requirements of the high school for graduation. (Emphasis supplied.) 45 Second, the school underwrites the event. The school offers to the senior class, at no cost, the building and other expenses. Even the commencement programs are paid for in part with money the senior class is allotted from student registration funds. The graduation is attended and approved of by school officials. School officials encourage the senior class officers to prepare graduation and give them some control over the program in order to encourage leadership. 46 Given that graduation is ultimately a school-controlled, school-sponsored event, there appears in this case to be just as much state involvement as appeared in Collins. As in Collins, the assembly in this case occurs on school property at a time scheduled and set aside by school officials. 5 With respect to state involvement, there is little if anything to distinguish the Grangeville High graduation ceremony from the school assemblies at issue in Collins. 47 We held in Collins that the fact that students set the assembly agenda and make decisions as to whether a prayer shall occur, who shall say it, and how it shall be said is insufficient to distance school officials from what would otherwise be an Establishment Clause violation. We found no meaningful distinction between school officials acting directly and school officials merely permitting students to direct the exercises. 644 F.2d at 761 (internal quotations omitted). Under Collins, therefore, whether school officials make the decisions or give their authority to decide to another, the ultimate responsibility for those decisions is borne by school officials. Applied in this case, Collins requires us to find state involvement sufficient to violate the Establishment Clause. 48 That school officials cannot divest themselves of constitutional responsibility by allowing the students to make crucial decisions should not be surprising. The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. Board of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 1185, 87 L.Ed. 1628 (1943). Because state and federal governments are republican in nature, the Constitution usually acts to limit the power of representatives. The Constitution's reach is not limited only to the acts of representatives, however. Elected officials cannot avoid constitutional mandates by putting them to a majority vote. One's ... fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. Id. The notion that a person's constitutional rights may be subject to a majority vote is ... anathema. Gearon v. Loudoun County. Sch. Bd., 844 F.Supp. 1097, 1100 (E.D.Va.1993). Giving majorities the power of the state without constitutional restrictions undermines the limitations on majority oppression the Constitution establishes. It also in this case would inject into our public schools the divisiveness regarding religion against which the Lee decision intended to guard. --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2656. 49 Furthermore, elected officials cannot absolve themselves of a constitutional duty by delegating their responsibilities to a nongovernmental entity. Even private citizens when acting with government authority must exercise that authority constitutionally. Cf. Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296, 299, 86 S.Ct. 486, 488, 15 L.Ed.2d 373 (1966) (stating that [c]onduct that is formally 'private' may become so entwined with governmental policies or so impregnated with a governmental character as to become subject to the constitutional limitations placed upon state action, and listing examples); Griffin v. Maryland, 378 U.S. 130, 135, 84 S.Ct. 1770, 1772-73, 12 L.Ed.2d 754 (1964) (holding an amusement park employee had engaged in state action); Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461, 73 S.Ct. 809, 97 L.Ed. 1152 (1953) (holding a private political society was sufficiently involved in the local electoral process to warrant oversight by the judiciary lest the society deprive other voters of their constitutional rights). 50 In Collins, the school delegated its authority to make decisions regarding school-sponsored, school-controlled assemblies to the Student Council. In this case, the school district has delegated its authority to make decisions regarding a school-sponsored, school-controlled event to the Grangeville High senior class. Lee holds that school officials cannot do what the senior class has done in this case. We cannot allow the school district's delegate to make decisions that the school district cannot make. When the senior class is given plenary power over a state-sponsored, state-controlled event such as high school graduation, it is just as constrained by the Constitution as the state would be. 51 Indeed, a decision to the contrary would allow school boards in religious communities generally to avoid Establishment Clause concerns in the public schools. The school board could allow students to vote daily prayers and the Ten Commandments back into their classrooms. See Engle v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962) (daily prayers); Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39, 101 S.Ct. 192, 66 L.Ed.2d 199 (1980) (the Ten Commandments). While in some societies the wishes of the majority might prevail, the Establishment Clause requires us to reject that path. Lee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2660. In short, we are not persuaded that the responsibility of the School Board may be treated so lightly as the School Board insists. Collins, 644 F.2d at 762 (internal quotations omitted). 52 The school district's disclaimer on the commencement programs does not save the school's practice. The student in the religious minority is well aware that the school has delegated authority over the prayers to the majority of her classmates while retaining ultimate control over the school-sponsored meeting. The student is also aware that the effect of the delegation is that her religious views are subordinated to the majority's. While the district asserts that it neither promotes nor endorses the stated views, this disclaimer flies in the face of what the student knows is occurring. 53 Cases cited by the school district are not to the contrary. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills Sch. Dist., --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2462, 125 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993), addressed whether the state could provide a publicly-paid interpreter to a deaf student whose parents had chosen to place him in a private parochial school. The Court held that the Establishment Clause was not offended, in part because the statute providing a publicly paid interpreter accorded parents the right to select a school. Thus, the presence of the interpreter in the parochial school was solely the result of private choice, not state decisionmaking. --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2467. Zobrest involved a neutrally distributed benefit, however, the right to an interpreter. In this case, the privilege to choose whether a prayer will be said at graduation is not a neutrally distributed benefit. Each student is not allowed to have the graduation she wants. Instead, the decision is made by a majority of the senior class and imposed on a minority. Moreover, the majority-designated speaker who prays at graduation teaches religion, unlike the interpreter in Zobrest who neutrally passes on the messages given by others. See --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2469. 54 Nor is Collins undercut, as the school district suggests, by Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Sch. Dist., --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993), Board of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990), or Garnett v. Renton Sch. Dist. No. 403, 987 F.2d 641 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 72, 126 L.Ed.2d 41 (1993). Specifically, the school district contends that its high school graduation is an open forum in which student speech is allowed on a nondiscriminatory basis such that the Establishment Clause is not offended. The school district contends Justice O'Connor's opinion in Mergens is most apposite: 55 [A]n open-forum policy, including nondiscrimination against religious speech, would have a secular purpose ... [Such a forum] does not confer any imprimatur of state approval on religious sects or practices. Indeed, the message is one of neutrality rather than endorsement; if a State refused to let religious groups use facilities open to others, then it would demonstrate not neutrality but hostility toward religion. 56 496 U.S. at 248, 110 S.Ct. at 2370-71 (opinion of O'Connor, J., for herself and three other Justices) (quoting Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 271, 274, 102 S.Ct. 269, 275, 276, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981)) (citations omitted). All of these cases involved the use of school property as a public or open forum of some sort, in which school officials allowed on a nondiscriminatory basis various non-school-related meetings to be held on school property when the property was not being used for school purposes. Lamb's Chapel and Mergens held that if school officials create such a forum they cannot decline to allow religious meetings to be held under similar circumstances solely because those meetings involve religion. Lamb's Chapel, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2146-49; Mergens, 496 U.S. at 243-47, 110 S.Ct. at 2368-70; 496 U.S. at 248, 110 S.Ct. at 2370-71 (opinion of O'Connor, J.); see Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. at 271, 274, 102 S.Ct. at 275, 276. Garnett held that the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. Secs. 4071-74, on which Mergens partly relies, overrides state constitutional law contrary to it. 987 F.2d at 644-46. In all of these cases, attendance at all religious as well as non-religious meetings was entirely voluntary, no religious meeting was sponsored by the school, and school officials neither encouraged nor participated in the meetings except on a custodial basis. E.g., Lamb's Chapel, --- U.S. at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2143-48; Mergens, 496 U.S. at 231-47, 110 S.Ct. at 2362-70. 57 Contrary to the suggestion of the district, this case does not involve an open forum, at least with respect to prayer at graduation and the rights of students in the minority, whose rights are at issue in this case, see Lee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2658. Only speakers chosen by the majority of the senior class are allowed. The message of the speakers is also chosen by the majority; the relevant speakers are instructed to pray. No matter what message a minority of students may wish to convey, the graduation forum is closed to them. A forum that allows only selected speakers to convey an established message and forecloses a significant portion of its members from any speech at all is not open in the required sense. See Brody v. Spang, 957 F.2d 1108, 1117-20 (3d Cir.1992). The government does not create a public forum by inaction or by permitting limited discourse, but only by intentionally opening a nontraditional forum for public discourse. Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 802, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3449, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985). Lamb's Chapel, Mergens, and Garnett are therefore inapposite. Moreover, in this case, attendance is not entirely voluntary, the graduation is sponsored by the school, and school officials participate heavily in the production and presentation of commencement. 58 Collins therefore remains valid law and (with Lee ) controls this case as regards whether state involvement was present. As implied by this discussion, we find the reasoning of Jones and cases following it 6 flawed. In any event, Collins requires us to reject Jones's reasoning. Collins demonstrates that the decision of school officials to hold a prayer is not the only sort of state involvement precluded by the Establishment Clause. 59
60 Once the requisite state involvement is shown, the rest of this case is indistinguishable from Lee. Students are as obligated to attend and participate in graduation prayers, either by bowing their heads or maintain[ing] respectful silence, Lee, --- U.S. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2658, at Grangeville High graduation as at the high school commencement discussed in Lee. Collins is also instructive: [S]tudents must either listen to a prayer chosen by a select group of students or forego the opportunity to attend not just a school assembly but their own graduation. See Collins, 644 F.2d at 762. It is difficult to conceive how this choice would not coerce a student wishing to be part of the social mainstream.... Id. The presence of state involvement and the obligatory nature of the students' participation in the religious activity taking place at graduation render the Grangeville High graduation prayers unconstitutional. 7