Opinion ID: 356147
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Meltzer Mise-en-scene

Text: 7 A brief summary of the facts of this case reveals that the equally divided en banc Court's decision is plainly at odds with the First Amendment's principles of religious freedom. On August 24, 1970, the Orange County Board of Public Instruction held a meeting at which a member of the Gideon Camp asked permission to distribute Gideon Bibles to the students at the public schools. The request was approved. At this meeting the Board also adopted a resolution calling for a five to seven minute morning exercise in every school to consist of prayer and Bible reading. At the next meeting of the Board, on September 15, 1970, the eventual plaintiffs in this case complained to the Board that the morning exercise devotional and the distribution of Gideon Bibles violated their religious rights. 8 At a third meeting of the Board, counsel for the Board gave his opinion that the morning exercises were not unlawful. To support his opinion counsel cited Chapter 231.09(2) of the Florida Statutes. 3 The Board thereupon refused to modify its policy regarding opening day exercises. The morning exercise program was found to be unconstitutional by the panel and this result is affirmed by the en banc Court. Notwithstanding this affirmance of the panel, the unconstitutional morning devotional is relevant here to the extent it implicates the Florida Christian virtue statute and to the extent it reflects the general predilection of the Board to encourage an institutionalized form of religion in the public schools. 9 Following this third meeting, on October 7, 1970, the Board did issue guidelines for the distribution of Bibles or other religious literature. 4 Prior to the issuance of the guidelines, groups of Gideons would go from classroom to classroom walking up and down the aisles distributing Bibles to those students who indicated they would like one. In this fashion 15,000 Bibles were distributed to the school children during class. 10 The October 7th guidelines were designed ostensibly to quell the religious minorities' cries of protest. Under the guidelines a location within the school facilities would be designated for the distribution of religious literature supplied by outside groups. The guidelines, however, applied only to religious literature, and permitted the periodic announcement to the pupils that the literature was available. No similar invitation was issued to other pressure interest groups such as the United States Chamber of Commerce, N.A.A.C.P., AFL-CIO, Ripon Society, Americans for Democratic Action or others who have a legitimate interest in advancing their causes through the capture of young minds. The guidelines were adopted nine days before the lawsuit was filed. 11 Although the guidelines might appear as a concession to the religious minorities by allowing all religions to distribute literature, as applied only the Gideons took advantage of the arrangement. More importantly, they took advantage of the guidelines to the tune of 33,000 additional Bibles distributed after adoption of the guidelines. Apparently the distribution was made at locations highly visible to the students, such as cafeterias, by the Gideons themselves. 5 Finally, it is unclear whether the Board's January 14, 1971 Compliance Statement 6 which restricted distribution to school libraries has been implemented. 12 Today's decision jeopardizes fundamental First Amendment values. As Justice Clark, speaking for the Supreme Court in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 1967, 374 U.S. 203, 222, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1571, 10 L.Ed.2d 844, 858, recognized, history teaches that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. The Board's October 7 guidelines unjustifiably encroach upon this long-accepted notion of the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty. 13 Our decision today permits young, impressionable students to receive influential dosages of one group's beliefs through repeated and massive distribution of the Bible. The children cannot help but view the school system's formal tolerance of such distribution as the placement of the community's imprimatur on this particular movement and all that it embodies. This is precisely what the Establishment Clause prohibits. One does not need to be a prophet to realize that after this Court's holding today some children in Florida schools will be coerced, pressured, or influenced into accepting one faith over others not as fortunate to receive state approval. 14 The Court's decision allows outsiders to influence the theological beliefs of pupils through subtle and unchecked efforts to proselytize. Although the constitutional obligation of separation of church and state is not so narrow a channel that the slightest deviation from a straight course leads to condemnation, here the course is well charted by precedent. We turn now to examine and apply the jurisprudential themes which underlie the Establishment 15 Clause and which envelop this controversy. II. The 16 Constitutionality Of The 1970 Guidelines For The Distribution Of Religious Literature In Public Schools 17 Each state effort to promote or accommodate religion is measured against a three-tiered Establishment Clause standard. To pass muster under the Constitution the state action 7 in question must reflect a clearly secular purpose, have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and avoid excessive government entanglement with religion. Wolman v. Walter, 1977, 433 U.S. 229, 97 S.Ct. 2593, 53 L.Ed.2d 714; Roemer v. Maryland Public Works Board, 1976, 426 U.S. 736, 748, 96 S.Ct. 2337, 49 L.Ed.2d 179; Meek v. Pittenger, 1975, 421 U.S. 349, 358, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 44 L.Ed.2d 217; Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 1973, 413 U.S. 756, 773, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948. 8 The Supreme Court views these criteria as guidelines with which to identify instances in which the objectives of the Religion Clauses have been impaired. Tilton v. Richardson, 1971, 403 U.S. 672, 678, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 2095, 29 L.Ed.2d 790; Nyquist, supra, 413 U.S. at 773 n.31, 93 S.Ct. at 2965 n.31, 37 L.Ed.2d at 963 n.31. 9
18 An examination of the record reveals that the Bible distribution guidelines fail to reflect a secular purpose. First, on their face the guidelines, entitled Religious Books and Literature, apply solely to the distribution of religious literature, and expressly do not apply to the distribution of secular literature. 10 Moreover, after initially approving the Gideons' request to distribute Bibles in the classroom, the Board adopted its October 7, 1970 guidelines only nine days before the eventual plaintiffs ceased their numerous and unheeded complaints to the Board and brought this lawsuit. The record is also void of any indication that any other religious group ever approached the Board for distribution privileges or ever utilized the distribution system adopted by the guidelines. Accordingly, the guidelines necessarily facilitated the Gideons' efforts at distribution in the schools. 19 More significantly, the Board's pattern of conduct highlights the primarily sectarian purpose which underlies the guidelines. This is not the first attempt by the Orange County school board to accommodate religion, particularly the Gideon movement, in its public schools. In a challenge to an earlier Board authorization of Gideon Bible distribution, the Florida Second District Court of Appeals indicated that Bible distribution could not constitutionally be permitted. Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 1960, Fla.App., 128 So.2d 181. Notwithstanding such notice of the potential constitutional infirmity inherent in any Bible distribution scheme, the Board again in 1970, prior to its adoption of the 1970 guidelines (see note 4, supra ), readily renewed this questionable practice. With the Board's permission, groups of Gideons descended on classrooms and roamed the aisles distributing Bibles to those children who indicated they would like one. At the en banc oral argument the counsel for the Board acknowledged that this form of distribution was clearly unconstitutional. Thus, despite the earlier state court ruling the Board, with no discussion, approved a highly questionable and later admittedly unconstitutional scheme. 20 The Board's conduct subsequent to the promulgation of the guidelines similarly evinces the nonsecular basis of the guidelines. For example, plaintiff's December 10, 1970 interrogatory No. 5 requested a variety of relevant information about the implementation of the Board's guidelines. 11 The Board's answer of February 1, 1971 stated that no principal has responded that he has implemented the guidelines. Because the Board acknowledged that thousands of Bibles had been distributed following adoption of the guidelines, this curt response tends to show that the Board failed to make any conscientious effort to enforce the guidelines or to even give an adequate answer to the interrogatory. Furthermore, there exists no indication that the Board's Statement of Compliance of January 13, 1971, which modified the guidelines by limiting distribution to the libraries, was ever complied with, enforced, or even circulated. 12 In fact, evidence at the March 8, 1971 compliance hearings indicated that Bible distribution may not have been limited to the libraries. By a deposition incorporated in the record at the compliance hearing, Mr. Considder, the Bible Secretary of the Gideon Camp, testified that distributions had occurred in areas such as school picnic grounds and school cafeterias. 13 21 Finally, the record reveals that the Gideon Camp again, on two separate occasions in August and September 1973, clearly after issuance of the 1970 guidelines, requested permission to distribute Bibles in the schools. The Board tabled the request by a 4-3 vote to await counsel's legal opinion on the outcome of this litigation. Thus, despite the strong dictum issued by the District Court in an earlier order, 14 the Board apparently felt that the legality of further Bible distribution was not settled, but instead depended on the outcome of the current litigation. Consequently, this negative action demonstrated the Board's desire, or at least continued willingness, to sanction Bible distribution for particular groups or sects. 22 Considered as a whole the record portrays a pattern of conduct which manifests the Board's predilection to encourage particular religions and in doing so to promote most particularly the aims of the Gideon movement. In the face of rulings by both the Florida state court and the federal District Court which indicated the likely constitutional infirmity of a Bible distribution scheme, the Board's conduct exhibits a sectarian commitment to Bible distribution, sectarian in the sense that the Board thought availability of Bibles was for religious values, not, say, as instruments of good literature. Such conduct also exposes the Board's disregard for the enforcement of the guidelines themselves. It is inescapable that the Gideon campaign principally, if not exclusively, motivated the Board's promulgation of the guidelines and, correspondingly, that a primarily sectarian purpose underlay those guidelines.
23 The effect of the school board's guidelines is also a constitutionally proscribed one. While the Supreme Court permits accommodation of religion in certain instances, it has generally strived for more precise principles to evaluate each promotion of a religious interest. One principle began developing in Everson v. Board of Education, 1947, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711, when Justice Black asserted that neither a state nor the federal government can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. 330 U.S. at 15, 67 S.Ct. at 511, 91 L.Ed. at 723. The nondiscrimination principle embodied within this phrase has been reaffirmed several times. 15 Torcaso v. Watkins, 1961, 367 U.S. 488, 81 S.Ct. 1680, 6 L.Ed.2d 982, expanded the principle, arguing that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally . . . pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers. . . . 367 U.S. at 495, 81 S.Ct. at 1683, 6 L.Ed.2d at 987. Finally, the Supreme Court declared in Gillette v. United States, 1971, 401 U.S. 437, 91 S.Ct. 828, 28 L.Ed.2d 168, that the Establishment Clause stands at least for the proposition that when government activities touch on the religious sphere, they must be secular in purpose, evenhanded in operation, and neutral in primary impact. 401 U.S. at 450, 91 S.Ct. at 836, 28 L.Ed.2d at 181. These cases outline a non-discriminatory impact principle that requires state action to be neither facially discriminatory nor discriminatory in impact. The Orange County school board's guidelines offend this principle and thereby violate the Establishment Clause. 16 24 First, the guidelines facially apply only to religious books and literature thereby discriminating between religion and nonreligion. More significant, more than just being discriminatorily selective, this shows that the guidelines were not intended to assure a source of religious works for study as literature for their literary qualities. Equally important, the guidelines expressly relate to such religious material provided or offered by outsiders. Thus, the Board has established by regulation a formalized system for the distribution of religious literature without making any similar provision for the distribution of secular literature. 17 Additionally, as applied the guidelines advance particularly the Gideon faith. Only the Gideons initially in 1970 requested permission to distribute religious literature. Only the Gideons have made repeated requests for permission to distribute religious literature. Only the Gideons have utilized the distribution scheme established by the guidelines. Finally, the guidelines are uniquely tailored to the Gideon movement which has as one of its principle missions the distribution of Bibles. 25 Because the guidelines, and operations thereunder, inevitably encourages proselytization both are equally vulnerable. Indeed, in its most innocent purpose, the Board intended that all faiths be given, free of cost, facilities and space together with a large group of prospective readers to compete with other faiths for the minds and wills of these children. The state was thus providing space, facilities, and most important, a large audience. 18 Moreover, with over 48,000 Bibles distributed the plain desire of the Gideons was to proselytize believers or nonbelievers into acceptance of their theological beliefs. 26 The conclusion that the Board's guidelines have an impermissible effect is bolstered by precedent. The leading case to consider the issue of the constitutionality of Bible distribution to public school children is Tudor v. Board of Education, 1953, 14 N.J. 31, 100 A.2d 857, 45 A.L.R.2d 729, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 816, 75 S.Ct. 25, 99 L.Ed. 644. In that case the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the distribution of Gideon Bibles to public school children was unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that the public school machinery is used to bring about the distribution of these Bibles to the children . . .. In the eyes of the pupils and their parents the Board of Education has placed its stamp of approval upon the distribution and, in fact, upon the Gideon Bible itself. . . . The school's part in this distribution is an active one and cannot be sustained on the basis of a mere assistance to religion. 14 N.J. at 51, 100 A.2d at 868, 45 A.L.R.2d at 741. The similar holdings by two other courts in Goodwin v. Cross County School District, E.D.Ark., 1973, 394 F.Supp. 417, and Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 1960, Fla.App., 128 So.2d 181, were grounded on the Tudor rationale. In the present case the periodic announcements of the availability of the religious literature reinforces the Board's imprimatur of the Gideon Bible. 27 These comments are an extension of Engel v. Vitale, 1962, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601, where the Supreme Court, without the citation of a single case and with only a single dissent, struck down a New York school board's requirement that an official state nondenominational prayer be recited in the public schools at the beginning of each day. In Engel the Court found that it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers and that government should leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. 370 U.S. at 425, 435, 82 S.Ct. at 1264, 1269, 8 L.Ed.2d at 605, 610. Similarly, in the present case it is not the business of government to endorse religion by maintaining on school premises a location for the distribution of religious literature brought into the school by members who unquestionably seek to persuade others to their particular faith. The desire of these outsiders whose gifts are accepted by the school belies its impact: it is offered to persuade, to influence adoption of a faith. 28
29 Analysis under the third tier of the Establishment Clause standard reveals that the Board's guidelines foster an excessive government entanglement with religion. In Tilton v. Richardson, 1971, 403 U.S. 672, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 29 L.Ed.2d 790, an Establishment Clause case which permitted public aid to private religious universities, Chief Justice Burger's plurality opinion outlines three factors which have a relevant bearing on the analysis of the Board's guidelines. First, the Court pointed out that indoctrination is more likely where students are younger, less experienced, less skeptical, and more impressionable. The distribution efforts involved here are aimed at just such students those in elementary and secondary schools. These young children cannot help but be influenced by the school's approval of the presence of Gideon Bibles as being in itself an approval of Gideon doctrine, lest why else would the books be allowed. Second, the aid in the present case is clearly of an ideological nature the distribution of the Bible, an instrument of religion which cannot be gainsayed. Finally, the Court in Tilton warned against permitting aid of a continuing nature. In the present case the Gideons have made repeated visits to the schools and have even made a request, though tabled by the Board, to allow even further distribution efforts. 30 The Board may also find itself effectively defining religion or censoring the content of religious materials. With periodic announcement of the availability of each faith's literature allowed by the guidelines, the secular public school system could become the focal point for the competition of all religious beliefs. The Courts and other state officials would be under a continuing duty to make certain that one faith was not in effect being endorsed and promoted by its monopolistic use of the distribution network or by the tone or content of the school's periodic announcements. Indeed, it is ironic that the more fairly and objectively the guidelines are enforced, the more the school board will become immersed in serious religious judgments. 31 We hasten to add that without question a course in comparative religion would be constitutionally permissible. Nothing said above conflicts with the Supreme Court's pronouncement that (w)hile study of religions and of the Bible from a literary and historic viewpoint, presented objectively, as part of a secular program of, need not collide with the First Amendment's prohibition, the State may not adopt programs or practices in its public schools or colleges which aid or oppose any religion. Epperson v. Arkansas, 1968, 393 U.S. 97, 106, 89 S.Ct. 266, 271, 21 L.Ed.2d 228, 236. Here, however, we are not discussing a detached academic exercise. Instead, we are discussing massive dosages of religious literature to children of an impressionable age. The First Amendment's protection of the religious liberty of these children and of all beliefs alike compels me to find the Orange County school board's Bible distribution guidelines unconstitutional.