Complete Home & Office Legal Guide/Complete Home and Office Legal Guide (Chestnut) (1993).ISO/stat/ussct/ri1.asc

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/* The Court's most recent opinion on Church v. State takes the
form of a prayer at junior high school graduation being found to
be unconstitutional. */

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be
released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the
time the opinion is issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of
the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of
Decisions for the convenience of the reader.  See United States
v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

LEE et al. v. WEISMAN, PERSONALLY AND AS
NEXT FRIEND OF WEISMAN
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the first circuit

No. 90-1014.  Argued November 6, 1991-Decided June 24, 1992

/* A case which took the court a comparatively long time to rule
upon. */

Principals of public middle and high schools in Providence, Rhode
Island, are permitted to invite members of the clergy to give
invocations and benedictions at their schools' graduation
ceremonies.  Petitioner Lee, a middle school principal, invited a
rabbi to offer such prayers at the graduation ceremony for
Deborah Weisman's class, gave the Rabbi a pamphlet containing
guidelines for the composition of public prayers at civic
ceremonies, and advised him that the prayers should be
nonsectarian.  Shortly before the ceremony, the District Court
denied the motion of respondent Weisman, Deborah's father, for a
temporary restraining order to prohibit school officials from
including the prayers in the ceremony.  Deborah and her family
attended the ceremony, and the prayers were recited.
Subsequently, Weisman sought a permanent injunction barring Lee
and other petitioners, various Providence public school
officials, from inviting clergy to deliver invocations and
benedictions at future graduations.  It appears likely that such
prayers will be conducted at Deborah's high school graduation.
The District Court enjoined petitioners from continuing the
practice at issue on the ground that it violated the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  The Court of
Appeals affirmed.

Held: Including clergy who offer prayers as part of an official
public school graduation ceremony is forbidden by the
Establishment Clause.  Pp.7-19.

 (a) This Court need not revisit the questions of the
definition and scope of the principles governing the extent of
permitted accommodation by the State for its citizens' religious

beliefs and practices, for the controlling precedents as they
relate to prayer and religious exercise in primary and secondary
public schools compel the holding here.  Thus, the Court will not
reconsider its decision in Lemon v.  Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602.  The
principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of
religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed
by the Establishment Clause, which guarantees at a minimum that a
government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in
religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which
"establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to
do so." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 678.  Pp.7-8.

 (b) State officials here direct the performance of a
formal religious exercise at secondary schools' promotional and
graduation ceremonies.  Lee's decision that prayers should be
given and his selection of the religious participant are choices
attributable to the State.  Moreover, through the pamphlet and
his advice that the prayers be nonsectarian, he directed and
controlled the prayers' content.  That the directions may have
been given in a good faith attempt to make the prayers acceptable
to most persons does not resolve the dilemma caused by the
school's involvement, since the government may not establish an
official or civic religion as a means of avoiding the
establishment of a religion with more specific creeds.  Pp.8-11.

 (c) The Establishment Clause was inspired by the lesson
that in the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant
expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate
and coerce.  Prayer exercises in elementary and secondary schools
carry a particu- lar risk of indirect coercion.  Engel v. Vitale,
370 U.S. 421; Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203.
The school district's supervision and control of a high school
graduation ceremony places subtle and indirect public and peer
pressure on attending students to stand as a group or maintain
respectful silence during the invocation and benediction.  A
reasonable dissenter of high school age could believe that
standing or remaining silent signified her own participation in,
or approval of, the group exercise, rather than her respect for
it.  And the State may not place the student dissenter in the
dilemma of participating or protesting.  Since adolescents are
often susceptible to peer pressure, especially in matters of
social convention, the State may no more use social pressure to
enforce orthodoxy than it may use direct means.  The
embarrassment and intrusion of the religious exercise cannot be
refuted by arguing that the prayers are of a de minimis
character, since that is an affront to the Rabbi and those for
whom the prayers have meaning, and since any intrusion was both
real and a violation of the objectors' rights.  Pp.11-15.

 (d) Petitioners' argument that the option of not
attending the ceremony excuses any inducement or coercion in the
ceremony itsel is rejected.  In this society, high school
graduation is one of life's most significant occasions, and a
student is not free to absent herself from the exercise in any
real sense of the term "voluntary." Also not dispositive is the
contention that prayers are an essential part of these ceremonies
because for many persons the occasion would lack meaning without
the recognition that human achievements cannot be understood
apart from their spiritual essence.  This position fails to
acknowledge that what for many was a spiritual imperative was for
the Weismans religious conformance compelled by the State.  It
also gives insufficient recognition to the real conflict of
conscience faced by a student who would have to choose whether to
miss graduation or conform to the state-sponsored practice, in an
environment where the risk of compulsion is especially high.
Pp.15-17.

 (e) Inherent differences between the public school system
and a session of a state legislature distinguish this case from
Marsh v.  Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, which condoned a prayer
exercise.  The atmosphere at a state legislature's opening, where
adults are free to enter and leave with little comment and for
any number of reasons, cannot compare with the constraining
potential of the one school event most important for the student
to attend.  Pp.17-18.
908 F.2d 1090, affirmed.

 Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, and Souter, JJ., joined.  Blackmun,
J., and Souter, J., filed concurring opinions, in which Stevens
and O'Connor, JJ., joined.  Scalia, J., filed a dissenting
opinion, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and White and Thomas, JJ.,
joined.


 Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.

 School principals in the public school system of the city
of Providence, Rhode Island, are permitted to invite members of
the clergy to offer invocation and benediction prayers as part of
the formal graduation ceremonies for middle schools and for high
schools.  The question before us is whether including clerical
members who offer prayers as part of the official school
graduation ceremony is consistent with the Religion Clauses of
the First Amendment, provisions the Fourteenth Amendment makes
applicable with full force to the States and their school
districts.

I
A

 Deborah Weisman graduated from Nathan Bishop Middle
School, a public school in Providence, at a formal ceremony in
June 1989.