Opinion ID: 721330
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Statute and its Treatment by the Panel

Text: 41 The Mississippi School Prayer Statute aimed at enabling the conduct of voluntary, student-initiated prayer in connection with public schooling. The statute states as its purpose: 42 ... to protect the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, to define for the citizens of Mississippi the rights and privileges that are accorded them on public school property, other public property or other property at school-related events; and to provide guidance to public school officials on the rights and requirements of law that they must apply. The intent and purpose of the Legislature is to accommodate the free exercise of religious rights of its student citizens in the public schools and at public school events as provided to them by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the judicial interpretations thereof as given by the United States Supreme Court. 43 1994 Miss.Laws Ch. 609, § 1(1). Without otherwise limiting the free exercise of religion and speech (Section 1(3)), the statute permits: 44 [o]n public school property, other public property or other property, invocations, benedictions or nonsectarian, nonproselytizing student-initiated voluntary prayer ... during compulsory or noncompulsory school-related student assemblies, student sporting events, graduation or commencement ceremonies and other school-related student events. 45 The statute disclaims state support, approval or sanction of any prayer or similar activity that occurs on public property, and it disavows the promotion or establishment of any religion or religious belief. Id. at § 1(4). A severability clause seeks to protect the bulk of the statute to the extent any of its provisions is held invalid or unconstitutional. Id. at § 1(5). 46 There is no doubt of the breadth of this statute, and notwithstanding its disclaimer, the vulnerability of some of its aspects to constitutional challenge. Whether, for instance, participation in student-initiated prayer could be imposed on unwilling students in a compulsory setting may be dubious. Compare Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992). But to admit a potential for unconstitutional application is not to condemn the entire statute. 47 Any simplistic description of the statute's operation is belied by the daunting variety of activities daily undertaken on school property. Students gather before, during and after school, at lunch, in activity rooms or on the field, for all sorts of curricular, extracurricular and quasi-curricular events. Testimony in this case listed a few of the types of assemblies alone: scholastic achievement assemblies, beauty pageants, guest speakers, programs, athletics, matters initiated by students, PTA, civic clubs, Boy Scouts, pep rallies. Precisely because the initiation of voluntary student prayer rests with students rather than school administrators, and because federal courts never permitted the law to take effect, there was no evidence in the district court as to how or when the statute might be invoked. 48 Rather than admit that construing this statute depends upon private, not state action, the Fifth Circuit found guilt by mischaracterization. Relying on conclusional statements of school officials and the enormous interest in prayer related to the Bishop Knox suspension, 1 the court declares, [i]mplementation of the statute would inevitably lead to improper state involvement in school prayer and would require school officials to decide who prays and to monitor prayers' content. Ingebretsen v. Jackson Public School District, 88 F.3d 274, 278 (5th Cir.1996). The court assumes that prayers may even be given by teachers, administrators or clergy, that attendance will be compulsory and non-attendants punished. Id. at 279. These conclusions are not based on any facts but solely on predictions and hypotheticals spawned by a broadly drafted statute. 49 Once the panel accepted this mistaken impression of state control over the prayers, its result was predictable. The panel deployed three tests that the Supreme Court has used to determine the parameters of the Establishment Clause. Although one of these tests has been repeatedly discredited but not overruled, 2 and the other two have never been fully adopted or explained, 3 they were deemed sufficient to the panel's task of holding the school prayer statute qua state prayer statute unconstitutional. 4 Unfortunately, its blow struck not just the mythical ogre of state-sponsored prayer but the sincere, praiseworthy desire of students to join in prayers of their own making. 50