Opinion ID: 179184
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Coercion Analysis

Text: Relying heavily on Lee, FFRF finally argues that the recitation of the Pledge in public school classrooms unconstitutionally coerces the Doe children to recite a purely religious ideology. Lee invalidated a public school's practice of inviting members of the clergy to give a nonsectarian prayer at its graduation ceremonies. Lee, 505 U.S. at 581-82, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Although attendance at the ceremonies and participation during the prayer were voluntary, the Court found that there was indirect pressure on attending students to stand or maintain respectful silence during the prayer, and that because silence during prayer signifies participation, this practice was unconstitutional. Id. at 598, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Lee held that the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise. Id. at 587, 112 S.Ct. 2649. Coercion need not be direct to violate the Establishment Clause, but rather can take the form of subtle coercive pressure that interferes with an individual's real choice about whether to participate in the activity at issue. Lee, 505 U.S. at 592, 595, 112 S.Ct. 2649. In public schools, this danger of impermissible, indirect coercion is most pronounced because of the young impressionable children whose school attendance is statutorily compelled. Schempp, 374 U.S. at 307, 83 S.Ct. 1560 (Goldberg, J., concurring). As Lee stated, prayer exercises in public schools carry a particular risk of indirect coercion. The concern may not be limited to the context of schools, but it is most pronounced there. Lee, 505 U.S. at 592, 112 S.Ct. 2649. FFRF contends that the Pledge, while not a prayer, is more problematic than the prayer at issue in Lee. It argues that the students in this case are younger and more impressionable; that they are led by teachers whom they respect as authorities, rather than by a member of the clergy whom they do not know; that those who participate are encouraged to verbalize the words, rather than merely listen; that the Pledge occurs every day, rather than once or twice in their school career; that a refusal to participate in the recitation of the Pledge is more obvious than refusing to listen to a prayer; and that unlike at a graduation ceremony, the students do not have their parents next to them to support them in their non-participation. These concerns do not make the New Hampshire Act unconstitutional. At least two factors distinguish Lee from this case. First, like other courts that have reviewed the Pledge, we think it relevant that the religious content of the phrase under God is couched in a non-religious text. [20] This fact is not dispositive, but it is significant. It removes the case from the direct scope of Lee, where the Court explained: These dominant facts mark and control the confines of our decision: State officials direct the performance of a formal religious exercise.... Lee, 505 U.S. at 586, 112 S.Ct. 2649 (emphasis added). Recitation of the Pledge is not a formal religious exercise. Second, the logic of Lee does not apply directly to the case before us. The Lee finding of unconstitutional coercion can be read to result from a three-step analysis involving two premises and a conclusion. The Court found that students were being coerced into silence during the saying of the prayer; that silence was, in the eyes of the community, functionally identical to participation in the prayer; and that therefore, students were being functionally coerced into participation in the prayer in violation of the Constitution. [21] A key premise is different here. While in Lee, the act of standing or remaining silent was an expression of participation in the rabbi's prayer, Lee, 505 U.S. at 593, 112 S.Ct. 2649, silence by students is not an expression of participation in the Pledge. Rather, a student who remains silent during the saying of the Pledge engages in overt non-participation by doing so, and this non-participation is not itself an expression of either religious or non-religious belief. FFRF's claim of unconstitutional coercion under Lee fails.