Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, Jane, et al. (06/19/2000)

By: Joedy McCreary, Medill News Service

Questions presented

Whether the school district's policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games violates the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause.

Brief

In April 1993, a 7th grade history teacher in Santa Fe handed out fliers advertising a Baptist religious revival. One of the 7th graders asked the teacher if non-Baptists were invited to attend, prompting the teacher to inquire about her religious affiliation. On hearing that she was Mormon, the teacher launched into a diatribe about the non-Christian, cult-like nature of Mormonism, and its general evils. Two days later, the girl's mother complained to the Santa Fe school district.

Because the teacher's actions violated a school district policy that prohibited the distribution of religious literature in class or the verbal abuse of any student, the teacher was given a written reprimand and directed to apologize to the family and to her class.

During 1992-93 and 1993-94 school years, the Santa Fe school district allowed students to read Christian prayers from the stage at graduation ceremonies and over the public address system at home football games. The prayers were delivered as ""invocations"" or ""benedictions,"" and typically were given by officers of the student council, though district representatives pre-screened the texts and retained control over the programs and facilities during the reading of the prayers, including the ability to cut off the microphone or remove the speaker.

That 7th grader attended a number of the football games.

In April 1995, the girl's parents and another family filed suit in district court against the school district, claiming the district was violating the 1st Amendment's separation of church and state. Because the dispute created bitter feelings in Santa Fe, the two families were permitted to file the lawsuit under the pseudonym, ""Jane Doe.""

In December 1996, U.S. District Judge Sam Kent held the school district's policies unconstitutional.

Kent said that prayer can remain part of the school district's graduation ceremonies and pre-game activities but only if the students organized and presented the prayer, and if the prayer was non-sectarian and non-persuasive.

The Santa Fe school board appealed, indicating to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that the judge's order required that the name ""Jesus"" be eliminated from the student-led prayers.

A divided 5th Circuit panel in February 1999 decided that students may not use the school's public address system for prayers at sporting events, but held the graduation prayers to be constitutional.

Writing for the majority, Judge Jacques Weiner Jr. said that a distinction must be made between graduation ceremonies and sporting events because commencement exercises are of a more solemn nature and once-in-a-lifetime phenomena.

""Here, we are dealing with a setting [football and basketball games] far less solemn and extraordinary, and a quintessentially Christian prayer."" Weiner Jr. wrote.

In applying three Supreme Court tests -- the Lemon, Coercion and Endorsement tests -- the majority held the school board's practices unconstitutional.

""By failing to prohibit sectarian and proselytizing prayers, [the school board's policy] has the primary effect of advancing and unconstitutionally endorsing religion,"" Weiner Jr. wrote.

Judge E. Grady Jolly dissented, writing that ""for the first time in our court's history, the majority expressly exerts control over the content of its citizens' prayers. And it does so notwithstanding that the Supreme Court has never required, suggested, hinted or implied that the Constitution controls the content of its citizens' prayers in any context.""

Santa Fe school district superintendent Richard Ownby then warned students that anyone who violated the appeals court ban on prayers would be disciplined.

In September 1999, on the day before Santa Fe High School was to play its season-opening football game against Crosby High, the parents of 17-year-old Marian Ward sued the school district to allow her to offer prayer during her pre-game speech.

Hours before the Friday night game, U.S. District Judge Sim Lake of Houston issued a temporary restraining order barring the school district from punishing Ward if she led her prayer. In apparent opposition to the 5th Circuit opinion, Lake's ruling said the school guidelines ""clearly prefer atheism over any religious faith.""

That night, Ward said in her prayer, ""God, thank you for this evening. Thank you for all the prayers that were lifted up this week for me. I pray that you'll bless each and every person here tonight.""

Texas Gov. George W. Bush joined the attorneys general of eight other states in filing a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the district's appeal.

The Court granted certiorari on Nov. 15, 1999. The justices told the school district and the parents to argue specifically on the constitutionality of policies permitting student-led and -initiated prayers at football games. The Court also allowed the Rutherford Institute to file an amicus brief in the case.

On June 19, 2000, the Court, divided 6-3 against the school district, held that public schools cannot allow student-led prayer before high school football games without violating the 1st Amendment's establishment clause.

The delivery of a message such as the invocation here--on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer--is not properly characterized as ""private"" speech, wrote Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority.

In finding that the school district had failed to divorce itself from the invocations' religious content, the majority concluded that the policy had established both a perceived and an actual endorsement of religion even though no students were coerced to participate in the religiousobservances.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote the dissent on behalf of himself and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

""Even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Courts opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life,"" wrote Chief Justice Rehnquist. ""Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, when it is recalled that George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of 'public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.'""