Strongly affirming that “government may not coerce anyone” to support or participate in religion, the Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Texas school district’s policy that allowed student-led invocations before high school football games.
In a 6-3 decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said the principle applies even if the government isn’t directly speaking through clergy, teachers or other school-selected officials but, instead, turns to students to lead public prayers. Such school-endorsed prayer sends a message that non-believers “are outsiders” in the community, the court said.
Taking up an issue that has pitted parents against parents and split Congress and numerous state legislatures, the justices’ opinion spoke with notable force in rejecting a prayer policy adopted by a small school district in southeast Texas. The policy had allowed a student, elected by the student body, to give a “brief invocation and/or message” to promote sportsmanship and “solemnize” the game.
“We recognize the important role that public worship plays in many communities, as well as the sincere desire to include public prayer as a part of various occasions so as to mark those occasions’ significance,” the court’s opinion said. “But such religious activity in public schools, as elsewhere, must comport with the 1st Amendment.”
The student-led prayer before Santa Fe High School football games didn’t meet those requirements, the court said. The prayers essentially amounted to government, as opposed to private, speech and coerced students to participate, the court held. It thereby violated the 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from establishing religion.
In striking down the policy, the court said the message amounted to government speech because it was shaped by school guidelines and was delivered over the public-address system. As further evidence of the school-sponsored nature of the prayer, the court emphasized that it was delivered by a speaker selected by the student body in a school-sanctioned election.
But as it has in American society, the issue sharply divided the justices. In a pointed dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote that the decision “bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life.” Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with Rehnquist that the court was too quick to strike down the policy.
The majority, however, suggested its ruling protects the religious beliefs of those in the minority. The court said the school’s election scheme–in which students voted on whether an invocation would be delivered before games and, if so, who would give it–was particularly offensive because it turned the school “into a forum for religious debate.”
What’s more, the court said the purpose of the policy was to encourage prayer. For those reasons, the court said, the Constitution flatly prohibits it.
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It therefore invalidated the policy on its face because it “establishes an improper majoritarian election on religion, and unquestionably has the purpose and creates the perception of encouraging the delivery of prayer at a series of important school events.”
Civil liberties groups hailed the ruling as a “total victory” for religious freedom. Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “We just don’t hold elections in this country to decide whether or not people get to pray.”
But conservative legal groups and lawmakers said the ruling was a blow to a person’s ability to freely exercise religious beliefs. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said the decision “reflects a growing bias against religion.”
How broadly the opinion will be applied beyond the Texas football field remains unclear. The court majority emphasized that the Constitution does not prohibit all religious activity in public schools or prevent students from voluntarily praying at any time during the school day.
But Shapiro and others said that student-led prayers at graduation may now be illegal as well, though the court refused to take up that issue.
The ruling does suggest that schools can’t justify policies on the grounds that students simply don’t have to participate. Even if a student’s attendance is voluntary, prayer still can illegally coerce students to participate in religious observances, the court said.
That’s particularly true when the prayer is delivered at the “extracurricular event that is American high school football,” which brings together “students and faculty, as well as friends and family from years present to past to root for a common cause,” Stevens wrote.
The Constitution, Stevens wrote, does not permit schools to force students to choose between joining classmates at a “traditional gathering of the school community” and a “personally offensive religious ritual.”
The case came about when two families, one Mormon and one Roman Catholic, challenged the Santa Fe, Texas, Independent School District’s policies on student prayer at graduation and football games. A federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that the graduation prayers were allowed if the message was “non-sectarian and non-proselytizing.”
But the appeals court ruled the football invocations were unconstitutional, regardless of whether the message was non-sectarian and non-proselytizing. It noted that the games are hardly once-in-a-lifetime, solemn events, as are high school graduations.
In taking up the football prayer issue, the high court turned to almost four decades of rulings that have consistently blocked official, state-sponsored prayer. It relied Monday on principles articulated in its most recent school prayer decision, in 1992, when the court said clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies violates the Establishment Clause.
In the eight years since that ruling, school districts such as Santa Fe had turned to student-led prayer to avoid constitutional concerns. Santa Fe argued that it wasn’t endorsing or advancing religion because the messages are private student speech protected by the Constitution.
The justices disagreed, noting that the school policy authorized the invocations, which took place on government property and at government-sponsored school-related events. The court noted that the school also controlled who would speak by creating an election system. It allowed only one student to give the invocation, instead of opening up the ceremony to use by the student body in general.
That also gave the school control over the message, because the district’s election system “ensures that only those messages deemed `appropriate’ under the district’s policy may be delivered,” the court said. The process guaranteed that “minority candidates will never prevail and that their views will be effectively silenced,” the court said.
What’s more, the policy actually encouraged religious messages, because its purpose was “to solemnize the event” and “promote good citizenship,” the court said. The court’s opinion also said any listener would think the school had endorsed prayer, because the message was broadcast on a public-address system to a cheering audience cloaked in school uniforms or wearing T-shirts and waving banners bearing the school name.
The court also rejected arguments that invocations at football games are different from those at graduations because the students aren’t being coerced to participate. As proof, the district again pointed to the election system, which it said ensured the messages were the product of student choices. It also said football games were voluntary events that students didn’t have to attend.
But the court said the election “encourages divisiveness along religious lines in public school setting.”
It also said football games weren’t voluntary for those in the band or on the team, and that some may get class credits for their presence.
Moreover, the justices said, it’s unrealistic to claim that others “do not feel immense social pressure or have a truly genuine desire” to attend football games.