Opinion ID: 683213
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lee and Collins

Text: 10 The plaintiffs contend that the district court erred in holding that the prayers did not violate the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court recently addressed, in Lee v. Weisman, --- U.S. ----, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992), whether a prayer said at a high school graduation ceremony violated the Establishment Clause. 11 In Lee, the principal of the high school invited Rabbi Leslie Gutterman to deliver prayers at the Nathan Bishop Middle School graduation. The principal gave the Rabbi a pamphlet, prepared by an organization of Christians and Jews, recommending what kinds of prayers should be given at civic ceremonies. The principal also advised the Rabbi that the prayers should be nonsectarian. The Rabbi's prayers were nonsectarian yet squarely in line with Judeo-Christian tradition. The graduation ceremony took place on school property. Attendance was stipulated by the parties to be voluntary. Students stood while the pledge of allegiance was said and remained standing during the prayers. The Court could not determine whether the Rabbi remained on the stage or participated in any other aspect of the graduation. Though the facts recited in the case describe only the Rabbi's prayer at the middle school, the school district's practice at the high school graduation, substantially the same as that at the middle school, was also at issue. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2652-54. 12 The Court held that the prayers violated the Establishment Clause. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2661. The Court reasoned, 13 These dominant facts mark and control the confines of our decision: State officials direct the performance of a formal religious exercise at ... graduation ceremonies for secondary schools. Even for those students who object to the religious exercise, their attendance and participation in the state-sponsored religious activity are in a fair and real sense obligatory, though the school district does not require attendance as a condition for receipt of the diploma. 14 Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2655. As to the first dominant fact, the Court reasoned that direction by state officials created a potential for divisiveness over religion. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2656. 15 As to the second dominant fact, the position of the students, the Court reasoned that there are heightened concerns with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2658. In this environment, 16 [w]hat to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices ... may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy. 17 .... The undeniable fact is that the school district's supervision and control of a high school graduation ceremony places public pressure, as well as peer pressure, on attending students to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence during the Invocation and Benediction. This pressure, though subtle and indirect, can be as real as any overt compulsion. .... ... [F]or the dissenter of high school age, who has a reasonable perception that she is being forced by the State to pray in a manner her conscience will not allow, the injury is ... real. There can be no doubt that for many, if not most, of the students at the graduation, the act of standing or remaining silent was an expression of participation in the Rabbi's prayer. That was the very point of the religious exercise. .... What matters is that, given our social conventions, a reasonable dissenter ... could believe that the group exercise signified her own participation or approval of it. 18 Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2658. The Court also noted that whether attendance at high school graduation could be called voluntary or not was irrelevant. High school graduation is an extremely important event, important enough that to say a teenage student has a real choice not to attend her high school graduation is formalistic in the extreme. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2659. It is a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to state-sponsored religious practice. Id. at ----, 112 S.Ct. at 2660. 19 This court has also addressed the practice of praying at high school assemblies. Collins v. Chandler Unified Sch. Dist., 644 F.2d at 759. In Collins, the Student Council requested and was granted permission by the principal to open with prayer student assemblies held on school property during school hours. The Student Council allotted a certain amount of time on the [assembly] agenda and selected one member of the student body to say the prayer. The selected student was free to choose the manner and words in which the prayer was delivered. Id. at 760. Students not wishing to attend the assembly could report to a supervised study hall. Id. 20 We held that these prayers violated the Establishment Clause, citing the three part test enunciated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). That test establishes that a state regulation does not violate the Establishment Clause if (1) the enactment has a secular purpose; (2) its principal or primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) it does not foster an excessive entanglement with religion. 644 F.2d at 762. Applying the Lemon test, we found that, first, the invocation of assemblies with prayer has no apparent secular purpose.... Second, the primary effect of such prayer appears to advance religion.... Id. (citations omitted). Third, the prayers involved excessive entanglement because the school assemblies required surveillance by school officials and ... probably involved attendance by faculty or administrators needing to supervise the obviously large gathering of students. Id. 21 We also held that there was no meaningful distinction between school authorities actually organizing the religious activity and officials merely 'permitting' students to direct the exercises. Id. at 761. Further, we noted that whether attendance at the assemblies could be called voluntary was irrelevant. The ... students must either listen to a prayer chosen by a select group of students or forego the opportunity to attend a major school function. It is difficult to conceive how this choice would not coerce a student wishing to be part of the social mainstream and, thus, advance one group's religious beliefs. Id. at 762.