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

Heading: Applying the Tests

Text: 42 Given the posture of this case, we limit our primary discussion to those portions of the Supreme Court's three Establishment Clause tests with regard to which Clear Creek II discussed the twin restrictions. Turning first to Lemon 's secular purpose requirement, SFISD argues that, as in Clear Creek II, its July Policy is designed to solemnize its graduation ceremonies. We are, of course, mindful of the deference courts typically afford a government's articulation of secular purpose. Bethel Sch. Dist. v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 106 S.Ct. 3159, 92 L.Ed.2d 549 (1986); Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 965-66. Nevertheless, the government's statement of secular purpose cannot be a mere sham. Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 586-87, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 96 L.Ed.2d 510 (1987). Here we simply cannot fathom how permitting students to deliver sectarian and proselytizing prayers can possibly be interpreted as furthering a solemnizing effect. Such prayers would alter dramatically the tenor of the ceremony, shifting its focus--at least temporarily--away from the students and the secular purpose of the graduation ceremony to the religious content of the speaker's prayers. Indeed, an almost inevitable consequence of permitting the uttering of such prayers would be the polarizing and politicizing of an event intended to recognize and celebrate the graduating students' academic achievements and the commonality of their presence and the path on which they are about to embark. In short, rather than solemnize a graduation, sectarian and proselytizing prayers would transform the character of the ceremony and conceivably even disrupt it. 43 The context of the evolutionary history in which SFISD developed its series of prayer policies further confirms the school district's penumbral religious purpose. As described above, SFISD first formulated an almost Clear Creek Prayer Policy, one which permitted students to deliver nonsectarian and nonproselytizing prayers (the October Policy); then, following the district court's initial ruling, adopted a pure Clear Creek Prayer Policy (the May Policy); and finally, on further reflection, created its ultimate twin-tiered policy (the July Policy), initially dropping the key content restrictions until and unless the district court should hold the primary policy unconstitutional and thereby trigger automatic implementation of the fall-back provision. As students were already permitted to deliver invocations and benedictions (even in the form of prayer) under SFISD's previously articulated policies, it is impossible to conclude that this final revision was anything but an attempt to encourage sectarian and proselytizing prayers--a purpose which is the antithesis of secular. See Ingebretsen, 88 F.3d at 279 (holding school district's policy permitting student-initiated prayer at compulsory or non-compulsory school events did not have secular purpose because (1) its clear intent was to inform students, teachers, and administrators they can pray at school events as long as student initiated prayer and (2) policy was passed as part of legislature's reaction to punishment of school president who championed prayer in school). Our cynicism about the school board's proffered secular purpose is galvanized by SFISD's inclusion of the fall-back alternative that would re-insert the twin restrictions ipso facto should the district court invalidate the basic provision of the July Policy. 44 Second, we conclude that, when shorn of the nonsectarian, nonproselytizing restrictions, SFISD's modified Clear Creek Prayer Policy fails Lemon 's primary effect prong as well. The effect prong asks whether, irrespective of government's actual purpose, the practice under review in fact conveys a message of endorsement or disapproval. Lynch, 465 U.S. at 690, 104 S.Ct. 1355. This consideration is especially important in the context of public schoolchildren. Aguillard, 482 U.S. at 583-84, 107 S.Ct. 2573; cf. Lubbock Civil Liberties Union v. Lubbock Indep. Sch. Dist., 669 F.2d 1038, 1048 (5th Cir.1982) (holding that high school was not public forum and stating [w]hile students have First Amendment rights to political speech in public school, sensitive Establishment Clause considerations limit their right to air religious doctrines.). 45 Again, in Clear Creek II, we determined that a student-led, nonsectarian, nonproselytizing prayer would serve to solemnize the graduation ceremony and thus would not have the primary effect of advancing religion. Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 967. As our later cases of Ingebretsen and Duncanville make abundantly clear, though, the mere fact that prayers are student-led or student-initiated, or both, does not automatically ensure that the prayers do not transgress Lemon 's second prong. Ingebretsen, 88 F.3d at 279 (holding school district's policy permitting student-initiated prayer at compulsory and non-compulsory school events had primary effect of advancing religion); Duncanville, 70 F.3d at 407 (distinguishing Clear Creek II and holding school officials' supervision of student-initiated and student-led prayers preceding basketball games violated Establishment Clause, in part because prayers were quintessentially Christian). Indeed, if subjecting a prayer policy to a student vote were alone sufficient to ensure the policy's constitutionality, what would keep students from selecting a formal religious representative, such as the rabbi in Lee, to present a graduation prayer? Indeed, to take the argument one step further, there would be no reason to deny the students the authority to designate a formal religious representative to deliver a full-fledged, fire-and-brimstone, Bible- or Koran-quoting, sectarian sermonette (in the dress for a prolonged invocation or benediction) at graduation; for, by putting the ultimate choice to the students, the sermonette would not facially bear the government's imprimatur. 46 But government imprimatur is not so easily masked: Prayers that a school merely permits will still be delivered to a government-organized audience, by means of government-owned appliances and equipment, on government-controlled property, at a government-sponsored event, thereby clearly raising substantial Establishment Clause concerns. Cf. Lee, 505 U.S. at 597, 112 S.Ct. 2649 (School officials retain a high degree of control over the precise contents of [a graduation ceremony], the speeches, the timing, the movements, the dress, and the decorum of the students.); Jones v. Clear Creek Ind. Sch. Dist., 930 F.2d 416, 418 (5th Cir.1991) (Clear Creek I ) (Graduation prayer policy is subject to Establishment Clause scrutiny because it is the mechanism through which the state provides space in a closed forum for arguably religious speech at a government sponsored event.), vacated, 505 U.S. 1215, 112 S.Ct. 3020, 120 L.Ed.2d 892 (1992); Jager v. Douglas County Sch. Dist., 862 F.2d 824, 831 (11th Cir.1989) (examining school practice under Establishment Clause [w]hen religious invocation is given via a sound system controlled by school principals and the religious invocation occurs at a school-sponsored event at a school-owned facility). And when the school permits sectarian and proselytizing prayers--which, by definition, are designed to reflect, and even convert others to, a particular religious viewpoint and which, as stated above, do not serve (and even run counter to) the permissible secular purpose of solemnizing an event--such permission undoubtedly conveys a message not only that the government endorses religion, but that it endorses a particular form of religion. 47 For the very same reasons, SFISD's prayer policy obviously violates the Supreme Court's Endorsement Test as well, which asks whether the government has appeared to take a position on questions of religious belief or has conveyed a message that religion is favored, preferred, or promoted over other beliefs. Ingebretsen, 88 F.3d at 280. 48 Having concluded that student-selected, student-given, sectarian, proselytizing invocations and benedictions at high school graduations violate both the Lemon test and the Endorsement test, we are not required to determine that such public school prayer policies also run afoul of the Coercion Test to hold them antithetical to the Establishment Clause. We nevertheless offer the following observation for the sake of completeness. 49 As alluded to above, Clear Creek II held that the Clear Creek Prayer Policy did not constitute a formal religious exercise because (1) the prayers were not delivered by a member of the clergy, and (2) the prayers were nonsectarian and nonproselytizing. Clear Creek II, 977 F.2d at 971. Prayer, of course, is a quintessential religious practice, Karen B. v. Treen, 653 F.2d 897, 901 (5th Cir.1981), aff'd, 455 U.S. 913, 102 S.Ct. 1267, 71 L.Ed.2d 455 (1982); and prayer in school raises particularly sensitive constitutional concerns. As the Supreme Court stated in Aguillard: 50 The Court has been particularly vigilant in monitoring compliance with the Establishment Clause in elementary and secondary schools. Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family. Students in such institutions are impressionable and their attendance is involuntary. 51 Aguillard, 482 U.S. at 583-84, 107 S.Ct. 2573. Only the combination of the factors relied on in Clear Creek II--that the prayer was student-led and nonsectarian, nonproselytizing--saved that school district's graduation prayers from being anathematized a formal religious exercise for the purposes of Lee 's Coercion Test. Cf. Lee, 505 U.S. at 588-90, 112 S.Ct. 2649 (holding nonsectarian, nonproselytizing graduation prayer delivered by rabbi was formal religious exercise). Again, because sectarian and proselytizing prayers are by their very nature designed to promote a particular religious viewpoint rather than solemnize an otherwise purely secular event, they cannot find sanctuary in the tightly circumscribed safe harbor of Clear Creek II and thereby avoid the appellation formal religious exercise. 10 52 Nevertheless, as the Coercion Test is conjunctive and there is no distinguishing difference between SFISD's policy and the policy of Clear Creek ISD in Clear Creek II with regard to the test's other two prongs--government direction and obligatory participation--we need not and therefore do not belabor the point by addressing today whether SFISD's policy violates the Coercion Test. It suffices that, when stripped of one of the foundational elements on which Clear Creek II is constructed, SFISD's graduation prayer policy is so constitutionally deficient that it cannot stand. By failing to prohibit sectarian and proselytizing prayers, the July Policy not only lacks a secular purpose, but has the primary effect of advancing, and unconstitutionally endorsing religion.