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

Heading: Lee and Clear Creek II

Text: 37 In Lee, the Supreme Court declared a school district's policy of allowing a high school principal to invite a religious official to give a nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocation and benediction at graduation to be an unconstitutional coercion of participation in a state-directed religious exercise. Lee, 505 U.S. at 586, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Four Justices appeared to find the policy to be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion as well. Id. at 604-05, 112 S.Ct. 2649 (Blackmun, J., joined by Stevens & O'Connor, JJ., concurring) & 629-30 & n. 8 (Souter, J., joined by Stevens & O'Connor, JJ., concurring); cf. Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 594, 109 S.Ct. 3086 (discussing endorsements). 38 Then, in Clear Creek II, applying the three Establishment Clause tests set forth above, we held that Clear Creek's policy of allowing a student-selected, student-given, nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocation and benediction at a high school graduation ceremony--SFISD's fall-back provision in the July Policy--did not violate the dictates of the Establishment Clause. Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 968-72. 39 SFISD asserts that a close reading of Clear Creek II reveals that the school district's graduation policy escaped the result in Lee not because of its nonsectarian, nonproselytizing content limitation, but rather solely because it permitted invocations and benedictions as long as they are student-selected and student-given. Inasmuch as our opinion in Clear Creek II specifically relied on the school district's requirement that the student-led graduation prayers be nonsectarian and nonproselytizing in holding that its policy did not offend the Establishment Clause, we find SFISD's reading of Clear Creek II to be specious at best. 40 First, we concluded in Clear Creek II that the twin restrictions served the dual functions of enhancing the graduation ceremony's solemnization, thus permitting the policy to clear Lemon 's secular purpose hurdle, while simultaneously reducing the possibility of endorsing religion. Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 971 ([T]he Resolution imposes two one-word restrictions 'nonsectarian and nonproselytizing' which enhance solemnization and minimize the advancement of religion.). Second, in Clear Creek II, we obviously relied on the nonsectarian, nonproselytizing nature of the prayers to determine that the BISD policy did not have the primary effect of advancing religion--Lemon 's second prong. Id. at 967 (Its requirement that any invocation be nonsectarian and nonproselytizing minimizes any such advancement of religion.); see also Doe v. Duncanville Ind. Sch. Dist., 70 F.3d 402, 406 (5th Cir.1995) (distinguishing quintessentially Christian prayer basketball team prayers from nonsectarian, nonproselytizing prayers in Clear Creek II ). Moreover, as the primary-effect prong of Lemon asks whether ... the practice under review in fact conveys a message of endorsement or disapproval, Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 690, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984) (emphasis added), the character of the prayer being scrutinized is clearly relevant to the Supreme Court's closely-related Endorsement Test as well. Finally, we rested our determination that the graduation prayers did not constitute a formal religious exercise for the purposes of Lee 's Coercion Test in principal part on the fact that Clear Creek's policy permitted only nonsectarian, nonproselytizing prayers. Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 971. 41 Thus, contrary to SFISD's conclusional suggestion, Clear Creek II did not hold that a policy is insulated from constitutional scrutiny under the Establishment Clause merely because it permits, rather than requires, religious speech when selected and given by students. 8 Much more than mere window dressing, the content restrictions that SFISD now attempts to cast aside were, in fact, central to our holding in the Clear Creek II. 9 More to the point, we now conclude, in obeisance to the ineluctable precedent of Clear Creek II, that a knock-off of a Clear Creek Prayer Policy that does not limit speakers to nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocations and benedictions violates the dictates of the Establishment Clause.