Court Opinion

ID: 9561130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:04:02.112828+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:38.716827
License: Public Domain

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part, but concurring in the judgment:
I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that banning the playing of an instrumental version of the musical number Ave Maria at the Jackson High School graduation ceremony was a reasonable restraint on freedom of expression. I would hold that, in prohibiting Nurre and her classmates from playing them selected piece of music, the School District misjudged the Establishment Clause’s requirements and, in so doing, violated Nurre’s First Amendment rights.1 I am concerned that, if the majority’s reasoning on this issue becomes widely adopted, the practical effect will be for public school administrators to chill — or even kill — musical and artistic presentations by their students in school-sponsored limited public fora where those presentations contain any trace of religious inspiration, for fear of criticism by a member of the public, however extreme that person’s views may be.
The First Amendment neither requires nor condones such a result. The taking of such unnecessary measures by school administrators will only foster the increasingly sterile and hypersensitive way in which students may express themselves in such fora, and hasten the retrogression of our young into a nation of Philistines, who have little or no understanding of our civic and cultural heritage. Nonetheless, as much as I deplore what was done in this case, because the relevant guiding principles in this area are unsettled, I believe that Dr. Whitehead and the School District are entitled to qualified immunity, and I therefore concur in the judgment.
The School District concedes that the graduation ceremony in this case was a limited public forum. Assuming, as the majority does, that such is the case, the restrictions imposed in this instance pass muster only if the restrictions are: (1) viewpoint neutral and (2) reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum. Faith Ctr. Church Evangelistic Ministries v. Glover, 480 F.3d 891, 907-08 (9th Cir. 2007) (“ ‘The challenged regulation need only be reasonable, as long as the regulation is not an effort to suppress the speaker’s activity due to disagreement with the speaker’s view.’ ” (quoting Int’l Soc’y for Krishna Consciousness v. Lee, 505 U.S. *1100672, 679, 112 S.Ct. 2701, 120 L.Ed.2d 541 (1992))), overruled on other grounds by Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, — U.S.-, 129 S.Ct. 365, 375, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008). I believe that the School District’s restriction here fails that test. Though the prohibition was viewpoint neutral, it was not “reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum,” id. at 897.
To gauge the reasonableness of the School District’s restriction, it is important first to appreciate the far-reaching influence of religion and religious institutions on music. It is undisputed that much of the music composed in the Western World during the musical eras known as the medieval, baroque, and classical periods was fostered by one or more of the major European Christian denominations. See Doe v. Duncanville Ind. Sch. Dist., 70 F.3d 402, 407 (5th Cir.1995) (crediting testimony that “60-75 percent of serious choral music is based on sacred themes or text”); Richard Collin Mangrum, Shall We Sing? Shall We Sing Religious Music in Public Schools?, 38 Creighton L. R Ev. 815, 866 (2005) (“[Approximately forty-four percent of the music recommended by the Music Educators National Conference for inclusion in the public school curriculum — for the secular purposes of preserving ‘America’s vast and varied music heritage,’ — has religious significance.”); All Music Guide To Classical Music 1539 (Chris Woodstra, et al. eds., Backbeat Books 2005) (noting Pope Gregory’s role in spurring medieval monophonic Gregorian chants); id. at 1541 (describing how “Protestantism’s emphasis on the Scriptures” significantly influenced J.S. Bach’s baroque compositions).
Though largely fostered in connection with the church, some of these religiously-prompted works are now performed primarily to express an artistic, secular message. As a result, current popular music comprises a significant number of works that, though originally inspired by religion, have since become largely secularized. Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah, Steffen and Ward Howe’s The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor, and Purvis and Black’s When the Saints Go Marching In, are but a few examples. When performed instrumentally and without lyrics, moreover, these and similar pieces take on an even more secular character.
Though it is a more contemporary composition, the Jackson High School students’ selected piece is one such work. It is an arrangement for wind instruments originally written by twentieth-century German composer Franz Biebl. Biebl composed the original work in 1964 for performance, not in a church, but by a firemens’ chorus. Here, the purpose of the graduation ceremony — including the wind ensemble’s performance of the piece — was to acknowledge the achievements of the Jackson High School students. That recognition included the opportunity to express themselves through speech and music.
The School District justified its decision to prohibit the performance by citing its goal of making the event “entirely secular in nature.”2 In my view, purging such a ceremony of all vestiges of religiously inspired art and culture — including those works with even the most attenuated con*1101neetions to religion — did not advance the purpose of recognizing and providing a forum for student achievement. To the contrary, given religion’s pervasive influence on classical music discussed above, the censorship did the opposite, curtailing the students’ secular artistic expression. That prohibition was therefore unreasonable in light of the forum’s purpose.
Taking a contrary view, the majority relies on our decision in DiLoreto v. Downey Unified School District Board of Education, 196 F.3d 958, 967 (9th Cir.1999), as well as out-of-cireuit cases, Brody ex rel. Sugzdinis v. Spang, 957 F.2d 1108, 1122 (3d Cir.1992), and Student Coalition for Peace v. Lower Merion School District Board of School Directors, 776 F.2d 431, 437 (3d Cir.1985), to support its conclusion that the ban was reasonable in light of the forum’s purpose. None of these cases, however, is on point. In DiLoreto, we held that it was reasonable for a school district to prohibit a large banner advertisement of the Ten Commandments — an obvious attempt at proselytization — on school property. See 196 F.3d at 962, 967. In Brody, the Third Circuit noted that restricting a student’s overtly evangelizing graduation speech would be acceptable. 957 F.2d at 1122. And in Student Coalition for Peace, the court held that a school district could prohibit a large partisan political rally on school grounds that could potentially generate significant controversy and disruption. 776 F.2d at 437.
Unlike in Student Coalition for Peace, the wind ensemble’s playing of Ave Maria here would not have risked creating a disruption or generating appreciable controversy. In that sense, the piece is distinguishable from Up Above My Head, the song performed at the Jackson High School 2005 graduation, which proclaimed, “I hear music in the air, oh Lord.... I really do believe there’s a heaven somewhere” and which, according to Whitehead, contained references to Jesus Christ. In contrast, the playing of the Ave Maria arrangement could not have reasonably been interpreted to convey a religious message, nor was any such message intended. Rather, as Nurre stated, it was simply “a pretty piece.” She further explained that, “it’s the kind of piece that can make your graduation memorable because we actually learned to play it really well. And we wanted to play something that we enjoyed playing.” For this reason, unlike as in DiLoreto, the performance would not have been viewed as proselytizing; as stated, the arrangement contains no words at all.
Though the majority does not reach this issue, the censorship also cannot be justified by relying on the so-called Establishment Clause defense. That defense is available only if the District’s “refusal to allow the students to[perform Ave Maria] as part of the graduation was necessary to avoid violating the Establishment Clause.” Cole v. Oroville Union High Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1092, 1101 (9th Cir.2000) (citing Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct. 2266, 147 L.Ed.2d 295 (2000); Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992)); see also Hills v. Scottsdale Unified Sch. Dist., 329 F.3d 1044 (9th Cir.2003). A school district may be obligated to censor religious messages for two reasons: (1) “to avoid the appearance of government sponsorship of religion”; and (2) to not “impermissibly coerc[e] ... dissenters, requiring them to participate in a religious practice even by their silence.” Lassonde v. Pleasanton Unified Sch. Dist., 320 F.3d 979, 983 (9th Cir.2003) (citing Cole, 228 F.3d at 1101, 1104).
Neither reason is present here. Whitehead stated that she and the other administrators “made the decision” “because the title of the piece would be on the program *1102and it’s Ave Maria and that many people would see that as religious in nature.” The majority relies on this justification and calls Ave Maria an “obviously religious piece,” Maj. Op. at n. 1, and a “well known Roman Catholic prayer,” id. at 1095. However, as stated, the tune is not that of the better-known piece by Schubert, but a relatively obscure contemporary work, unlikely to trigger a religious association in most audiences. And even Whitehead, a school administrator with a doctoral degree and formal training in the place of religion in public schools, admitted that she did not know the meaning of the words “Ave Maria,” but only had a vague sense that the term had some religious origin.3
Simply allowing the playing of a student-selected instrumental classical musical piece (with a title in a dead language whose meaning would be unrecognizable to most attendees of the graduation) cannot reasonably be construed as “government sponsorship of religion,” id. For similar reasons, merely attending an event where one of the several musical numbers is an obscure classical piece does not constitute “participat[-ing] in a religious practice,” id., even if the title of that piece happens to be a Latin expression for a religious invocation. While governments have “a compelling interest in not committing actual Establishment Clause violations,” there is no legitimate interest “in discriminating against religion in whatever other context it pleases, so long as it claims some connection, however attenuated, to establishment concerns.” Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712, 730 n. 2, 124 S.Ct. 1307, 158 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (internal citations omitted). As I see it, that is essentially what occurred here.
I readily acknowledge that no bright lines exist in this complex field of First Amendment law, and I sympathize with school officials, who often find themselves in a Catch-22, subject to criticism and potential law suits regardless of the position they take. Because of this unfortunate reality, I conclude that qualified immunity is appropriate in this case. But I also believe that, unless the courts provide balanced guidance on where those not-so-bright lines lie, we only perpetuate the confusion, encourage further litigation, and stunt student artistic expression in violation of the First Amendment.

. I agree with the majority that there was no violation of either the First Amendment Establishment Clause or the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

. In marked contrast to what was done in this case, in previous years the School District had condoned the ensemble's playing a piece titled On a Hymnsong of Phillip Bliss at the school's graduation ceremony. A “hymn” is defined as, among other things, a "song of praise to God” and a "metrical composition adapted for singing in a religious service.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1111 (2002).

. As amicus for Nurre notes, many common proper nouns for secular entities have religious origins. For example, the cities Los Angeles (originally "our lady of the city of the angels”), San Diego ("Saint Didacus"), and Las Cruces ("the crosses”) each contain overt religious references.