Court Opinion

ID: 9428545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:06.149739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:14.167600
License: Public Domain

*282Justice White,
dissenting.
In affirming the decision of the Court of Appeals, the majority rejects petitioners’ argument that the Establishment Clause of the Constitution prohibits the use of university buildings for religious purposes. A state university may permit its property to be used for purely religious services without violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments. With this I agree. See Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 813 (1973) (WHITE, J., dissenting); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 661 (1971) (opinion of White, J.). The Establishment Clause, however, sets limits only on what the State may do with respect to religious organizations; it does not establish what the State is required to do. I have long argued that Establishment Clause limits on state action which incidentally aids religion are not as strict as the Court has held. The step from the permissible to the necessary, however, is a long one. In my view, just as there is room under the Religion Clauses for state policies that may have some beneficial effect on religion, there is also room for state policies that may incidentally burden religion. In other words, I believe the States to be a good deal freer to formulate policies that affect religion in divergent ways than does the majority. See Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 422-423 (1963) (Harlan, J., dissenting). The majority’s position will inevitably lead to those contradictions and tensions between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses warned against by Justice Stewart in Sherbert v. Verner, supra, at 416.
The University regulation at issue here provides in pertinent part:
“No University buildings or grounds (except chapels as herein provided) may be used for purposes of religious worship or religious teaching by either student or non-student groups. Student congregations of local *283churches or of recognized denominations or sects, although not technically recognized campus groups, may use the facilities . . . under the same regulations that apply to recognized campus organizations, provided that no University facilities may be used for purposes of religious worship or religious teaching.”
Although there may be instances in which it would be difficult to determine whether a religious group used university facilities for “worship” or “religious teaching,” rather than for secular ends, this is not such a case. The regulation was applied to respondents’ religious group, Cornerstone, only after the group explicitly informed the University that it sought access to the facilities for the purpose of offering prayer, singing hymns, reading scripture, and teaching biblical principles. Cornerstone described their meetings as follows: “Although these meetings would not appear to a casual observer to correspond precisely to a traditional worship service, there is no doubt that worship is an important part of the general atmosphere.” Chess v. Widmar, 480 F. Supp. 907, 910 (1979).1 The issue here is only whether the University *284regulation as applied and interpreted in this case is impermissible under the Federal Constitution. If it is impermissible, it is because it runs afoul of either the Free Speech or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
A large part of respondents’ argument, accepted by the court below and accepted by the majority, is founded on the proposition that because religious worship uses speech, it is protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.2 Not only is it protected, they argue, but religious worship qua speech is not different from any other variety of protected speech as a matter of constitutional principle. I believe that this proposition is plainly wrong. Were it right, the Religion Clauses would be emptied of any independent meaning in circumstances in which religious practice took the form of speech.
Although the majority describes this argument as “novel,” ante, at 269, n. 6, I believe it to be clearly supported by our previous cases. Just last Term, the Court found it suffi*285ciently obvious that the Establishment Clause prohibited a State from posting a copy of the Ten Commandments on the classroom wall that a statute requiring such a posting was summarily struck down. Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S. 39 (1980). That case necessarily presumed that the State could not ignore the religious content of the written message, nor was it permitted to treat that content as it would, or must, treat other — secular—messages under the First Amendment’s protection of speech. Similarly, the Court’s decisions prohibiting prayer in the public schools rest on a content-based distinction between varieties of speech: as a speech act, apart from its content, a prayer is indistinguishable from a biology lesson. See Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962). Operation of the Free Exercise Clause is equally dependent, in certain circumstances, on recognition of a content-based distinction between religious and secular speech. Thus, in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961), the Court struck down, as violative of the Free Exercise Clause, a state requirement that made a declaration of belief in God a condition of state employment. A declaration is again a speech act, but it was the content of the speech that brought the case within the scope of the Free Exercise Clause.
If the majority were right that no distinction may be drawn between verbal acts of worship and other verbal acts, all of these cases would have to be reconsidered. Although I agree that the line may be difficult to draw in many cases, surely the majority cannot seriously suggest that no line may ever be drawn.3 If that were the case, the majority would *286have to uphold the University’s right to offer a class entitled “Sunday Mass.” Under the majority’s view, such a class would be — as a matter of constitutional principle — indistinguishable from a class entitled “The History of the Catholic Church.”4
There may be instances in which a State’s attempt to disentangle itself from religious worship would intrude upon secular speech about religion. In such a case, the State’s action would be subject to challenge under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. This is not such a case. This case involves religious worship only; the fact that that worship is accomplished through speech does not add anything to respondents’ argument. That argument must rely upon the claim that the State’s action impermissibly interferes with the free exercise of respondents’ religious practices. Although this is a close question, I conclude that it does not.
Plausible analogies on either side suggest themselves. Respondents argue, and the majority agrees, that by permitting any student group to use its facilities for communicative purposes other than religious worship, the University has created a “public forum.” Ante, at 267-268. With ample *287support, they argue that the State may not make content-based distinctions as to what groups may use, or what messages may be conveyed in, such a forum. See Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92 (1972); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536 (1965). The right of the religious to nondiscriminatory access to the public forum is well established. See Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 (1951); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105 (1943). Moreover, it is clear that there are bounds beyond which the University could not go in enforcing its regulation: I do not suppose it could prevent students from saying grace before meals in the school cafeteria, or prevent distribution of religious literature on campus.6
Petitioners, on the other hand, argue that allowing use of their facilities for religious worship is constitutionally indistinguishable from directly subsidizing such religious services: It would “fun[d] a specifically religious activity in an otherwise substantially secular setting.” Hunt v. McNair, 413 U. S. 734, 743 (1973). They argue that the fact that secular student groups are entitled to the in-kind subsidy at issue here does not establish that a religious group is entitled to the same subsidy. They could convincingly argue, for example, that a state university that pays for basketballs for the basketball team is not thereby required to pay for Bibles for a group like Cornerstone.6
*288A third analogy suggests itself, one that falls between these two extremes. There are a variety of state policies which incidentally benefit religion that this Court has upheld without implying that they were constitutionally required of the State. See Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 (1968) (state loan of textbooks to parochial school students); Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952) (release of students from public schools, during school hours, to perform religious activities away from the school grounds); Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1 (1947) (state provision of transportation to parochial school students). Provision of university facilities on a uniform basis to all student groups is not very different from provision of textbooks or transportation. From this perspective the issue is not whether the State must, or must not, open its facilities to religious worship; rather, it is whether the State may choose not to do so.
Each of these analogies is persuasive. Because they lead to different results, however, they are of limited help in reaching a decision here. They also demonstrate the difficulty in reconciling the various interests expressed in the Religion Clauses. In my view, therefore, resolution of this case is best achieved by returning to first principles. This requires an assessment of the burden on respondents’ ability freely to exercise their religious beliefs and practices and of the State’s interest in enforcing its regulation.
Respondents complain that compliance with the regulation would require them to meet “about a block and a half” from campus under conditions less comfortable than those previously available on campus.7 I view this burden on free exer*289cise as minimal. Because the burden is minimal, the State need do no more than demonstrate that the regulation furthers some permissible state end. The State’s interest in avoiding claims that it is financing or otherwise supporting religious worship — in maintaining a definitive separation between church and State — is such an end. That the State truly does mean to act toward this end is amply supported by the treatment of religion in the State Constitution.8 Thus, I believe the interest of the State is sufficiently strong to justify the imposition of the minimal burden on respondents’ ability freely to exercise their religious beliefs.
On these facts, therefore, I cannot find that the application of the regulation to prevent Cornerstone from holding religious worship services in University facilities violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments. I would not hold as the majority does that if a university permits students and others to use its property for secular purposes, it must also furnish facilities to religious groups for the purposes of worship and the practice of their religion. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 Cornerstone was denied access to University facilities because it intended to use those facilities for regular religious services in which “worship is an important part of the general atmosphere.” There is no issue here as to the application of the regulation to “religious teaching.” Reaching this issue is particularly inappropriate in this case because nothing in the record indicates how the University has interpreted the phrase “religious teaching” or even whether it has ever been applied to activity that was not clearly “religious worship.” The District Court noted that plaintiffs did not contend that they were “limited, in any way, from holding on-campus meetings that do not include religious worship services.” 480 F. Supp., at 913. At oral argument, counsel for the University indicated that the regulation would not bar discussion of biblical texts under circumstances that did not constitute “religious worship.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 9. The sole question in this case involves application of the regulation to prohibit regular religious worship services in University buildings.

 Given that the majority’s entire argument turns on this description of religious services as speech, it is surprising that the majority assumes this proposition to require no argument. The majority assumes the conclusion by describing the University’s action as discriminating against “speakers based on their desire to . . . engage in religious worship and discussion.” Ante, at 269. As noted above, it is not at all clear that the University has discriminated or intends to discriminate against “religious discussion” — as a preliminary matter, it is not even clear what the majority means by “religious discussion” or how it entered the case. That religious worship is a form of speech, the majority takes to have been established by three cases. Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc., 452 U. S. 640 (1981); Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268 (1951); Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558 (1948). None of these cases stand for this proposition. Heffron and Saia involved the communication of religious views to a nonreligious, public audience. Talk about religion and about religious beliefs, however, is not the same as religious services of worship. Niemotko was an equal protection challenge to a discriminatory denial of one religious group’s access to a public park. The Court specifically stated that it was not addressing the question of whether the State could uniformly deny all religious groups access to public parks. 340 U. S., at 272.

 Indeed, while footnote 6 of the majority opinion suggests that no intelligible distinction may be drawn between worship and other forms of speech, footnote 9 recognizes that the Establishment Clause “requires” that such a line be drawn. The majority does not adequately explain why the State is “required” to observe a line in one context, but prohibited from voluntarily recognizing it in another context.

 Counsel for respondents was somewhat more forthright in recognizing the extraordinary breadth of his argument, than is the majority. Counsel explicitly stated that once the distinction between speech and worship is collapsed a university that generally provides student groups access to its facilities would be constitutionally required to allow its facilities to be used as a church for the purpose of holding “regular church services.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 26. Similarly, although the majority opinion limits its discussion to student groups, counsel for respondents recognized that the First Amendment argument relied upon would apply equally to nonstudent groups. He recognized that respondents’ submission would require the University to make available its buildings to the Catholic Church and other denominations for the purpose of holding religious services, if University facilities were made available to nonstudent groups. Id., at 39. In other words, the University could not avoid the conversion of one of its buildings into a church, as long as the religious group meets the same neutral requirements of entry — e. g., rent — as are imposed on other groups.

 There are obvious limits on the scope of this analogy. I know of no precedent holding that simply because a public forum is open to all kinds of speech — including speech about religion — it must be open to regular religious worship services as well. I doubt that the State need stand by and allow its public forum to become a church for any religious sect that chooses to stand on its right of access to that forum.

 There are, of course, limits to this subsidy argument. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), and Thomas v. Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U. S. 707 (1981), demonstrate that in certain circumstances the State may be required to “subsidize,” at least indirectly, religious practices, under circumstances in which it does not and need not subsidize similar behavior founded on secular motives.

 Respondents also complain that the University action has made their religious message less attractive by suggesting that it is not appropriate fare for the college campus. I give no weight to this because it is indistinguishable from an argument that respondents are entitled to the appearance of an endorsement of their beliefs and practices from the University.

 Since 1820, the Missouri Constitution has contained provisions requiring a separation of church and State. The Missouri Supreme Court has held that the state constitutional provisions are “not only more explicit but more restrictive than the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.” Paster v. Tussey, 512 S. W. 2d 97, 102 (1974).