Opinion ID: 222596
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The School Prayer Cases

Text: The Supreme Court first tackled the question of school prayer in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962). In that case, New York State implemented a regulation requiring school officials to recite a prayer aloud at the start of every day. Id. at 423, 82 S.Ct. 1261. The prayer, which was composed by state officials, read in its entirety: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. Id. at 422, 82 S.Ct. 1261. The Supreme Court held that the practice of using [the] public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer was wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. Id. at 424, 82 S.Ct. 1261. It reasoned that the prayer amounted to religious activity and served to officially establish the beliefs professed therein. Id. at 424, 430, 82 S.Ct. 1261. The Court warned that it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government. Id. at 425, 82 S.Ct. 1261. That the prayer was nondenominational or permitted students to remain silent or leave the classroom during the prayer did not cure its constitutional defects. This is because the Establishment Clause is violated by enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not. Id. at 430, 82 S.Ct. 1261. The next year, in School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963), the Supreme Court again invalidated two state policies of prayer in public schools: a Pennsylvania law requiring [a]t least ten verses from the Holy Bible [to] be read, without comment at the opening of each public school on each school day, id. at 205, 83 S.Ct. 1560, and a policy adopted by the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore, Maryland, that called for every school day to open with a reading of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord's Prayer, id. at 211, 83 S.Ct. 1560. In both cases, children could be excused from participating or observing the prayer. Id. at 207, 211 n. 4, 83 S.Ct. 1560. Neither practice withstood the Supreme Court's scrutiny. Three aspects of the states' policies rendered them unconstitutional: the fact that the state was requiring the selection and reading at the opening of the school day of verses from the Holy Bible and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the students in unison, the fact that the practice was prescribed as part of the curricular activities of students who are required by law to attend school, and finally, that the prayer was recited in the school buildings under the supervision and with the participation of teachers employed in those schools. Id. at 223, 83 S.Ct. 1560. Citing Engel, the Court explained that the fact that students could absent themselves from the prayer did not remedy the policy's unconstitutionality. Id. at 225, 83 S.Ct. 1560. By the time the Court decided its next school prayer case, Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985), it had already announced the well-known  Lemon test as the standard for determining the constitutionality of state action under the Establishment Clause. In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Court identified three factors that assist it in determining whether government action violates the Establishment Clause: (1) whether the government practice had a secular purpose; (2) whether its principal or primary effect advanced or inhibited religion; and (3) whether it created an excessive entanglement of the government with religion. 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). Applying those factors, the Wallace Court held that an Alabama statute authorizing a period of silence for `meditation or voluntary prayer,' in public schools, 472 U.S. at 41, 105 S.Ct. 2479, was unconstitutional. Specifically, the Supreme Court found that the statute failed the purpose prong of the Lemon test: the evidence of legislative intent revealed that the explicit purpose of the statute was to return voluntary prayer to schools. Id. at 57-60, 105 S.Ct. 2479. The key case in this series  and the one plaintiffs primarily rely on  is Lee v. Weisman, supra . In Lee, the Supreme Court held that a Rhode Island policy of permitting principals to choose clergymen to give nonsectarian prayers at school graduations was unconstitutional. The Court identified several aspects of the state's control over the prayer that were constitutionally problematic: First, because [a] school official, the principal decided that an invocation and a benediction should be given; .... from a constitutional perspective it is as if a state statute decreed that the prayers must occur. 505 U.S. at 587, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Second, the principal chose who should give a prayer, a choice [that] is also attributable to the State ... [that has] the potential for divisiveness. Id. Third, because the principal provided the selected clergyman with guidelines for the prayer, the state directed and controlled the content of the prayers. Id. at 588, 112 S.Ct. 2649. In effect, the government itself composed the prayer, a fact completely incompatible with the Establishment Clause. Id. Fourth, school officials' effort to monitor prayer w[ould] be perceived by the students as inducing a participation they might otherwise reject. Id. at 590, 112 S.Ct. 2649. In sum, [t]he degree of school involvement here made it clear that the graduation prayers bore the imprint of the State and thus put school-age children who objected in an untenable position. Id. The Lee Court wrote at length about the heightened concerns, regarding prayers in the public school educational system, which carry a particular risk of indirect coercion. Id. at 592, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Although that concern exists outside of the context of schools, it is most pronounced there. Id. Thus, courts must be careful to protect[] freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools. Id. In emphasizing the special nature of the school context, the Court compared the case to Marsh: Inherent differences between the public school system and a session of a state legislature distinguish this case from [ Marsh v. Chambers ]. Id. at 596, 112 S.Ct. 2649. First, [t]he atmosphere at the opening of a session of a state legislature where adults are free to enter and leave with little comment and for any number of reasons cannot compare with the constraining potential of the one school event most important for the student to attend. Id. at 597, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Second, a school graduation has far greater influence and force than the prayer exercise we condoned in Marsh.  Id. At a high school graduation, where school administrations 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, the school's involvement in the invocation and benediction combine to make the prayer a state-sanctioned religious exercise in which the student was left with no alternative but to submit. Id. This, too, distinguished Marsh from Lee. The Court again rejected the argument that the prayer was constitutional because students had the choice to stand silently during the benediction or refuse to attend the graduation altogether. Although the pressure to stand as a group during the invocation might be subtle and indirect, it was as real as any overt compulsion. Id. at 593, 112 S.Ct. 2649. The Court acknowledged that although standing silently might be interpreted as a personal act of dissent, the reasonable perception would be that any student standing or remaining silent during the prayer was participating in the prayer. Id. In support, Lee drew from research showing that adolescents are often susceptible to pressure from their peers towards conformity, and that the influence is strongest in matters of social convention. Id. at 593-94, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Of course, a student could always choose to absent herself from the graduation ceremony altogether. But this choice was no choice at all. While the parties had stipulated that attendance at the graduation was voluntary, the Court disagreed with this characterization. [T]o say a teenage student has a real choice not to attend her high school graduation is formalistic in the extreme. Id. at 595, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Law reaches past formalism. Id. Graduations have significant personal and cultural meaning; they are an opportunity for the student and her family to celebrate success and express mutual wishes of gratitude and respect. Id. To require a student to absent herself from her graduation in order to express her disapproval of the school prayer policy would contradict the First Amendment. This is because the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resist[ance.] Id. at 596, 112 S.Ct. 2649. The heightened concerns attendant to students more recently led the Supreme Court to strike down school policies permitting prayer at events where attendance is even more voluntary. Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000). In Santa Fe, the Court tackled the question of whether student-led and student-initiated invocations authorized by school policy that were given prior to a football game violated the Establishment Clause. Id. at 294, 120 S.Ct. 2266. Under that policy, the senior class elected the students responsible for delivering a brief invocation and/or message, the purpose of which was to solemnize the home varsity football games. Id. at 296-97 & n. 6, 120 S.Ct. 2266. With the principles of Lee in mind, id. at 301-02, 120 S.Ct. 2266, the Court found that, despite student involvement in selecting and composing the invocation, the state was in fact extensively entangled in this religious activity, id. at 305-08, 120 S.Ct. 2266. The school had crafted the policy permitting student prayer and thus was responsible for selection of the speakers and their messages; the prayer was delivered as part of a regularly scheduled, school-sponsored function conducted on school property and the message [wa]s broadcast over the school's public address system, which remain[ed] subject to the control of school officials and the prayers took place at football games replete with school symbols. Id. at 307, 120 S.Ct. 2266. The Supreme Court also rejected the school's argument that Lee's warnings about the coercive aspects of school graduations were absent in extracurricular events like football games. While accepting the proposition that attendance at a football game was in some ways more voluntary than attendance at a high school graduation, the Court noted that for some students  the players, cheerleaders, band members  attendance was essentially mandatory. For others, football games were important traditional gatherings. Id. at 312, 120 S.Ct. 2266. Citing Lee, 505 U.S. at 596, 112 S.Ct. 2649, Justice Stevens reiterated that the First Amendment does not permit the school to force students to make the difficult choice between attending these games and avoiding personally offensive religious rituals. 530 U.S. at 312, 120 S.Ct. 2266.