Brandon v. Board of Ed. of Guilderland Central School Dist.

• Decision Date: 17 November 1980
• Docket Number: D,No. 291,291
• Citation: 635 F.2d 971
• Parties: Jeanne BRANDON et al., Appellants, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the GUILDERLAND CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellees. ocket 80-7382.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 971

635 F.2d 971

Jeanne BRANDON et al., Appellants, v. The BOARD OF EDUCATION OF the GUILDERLAND CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Appellees.

No. 291, Docket 80-7382.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued Oct. 28, 1980.

Decided Nov. 17, 1980.

Robert M. Andersen, Chicago, Ill. (Robert P. Roche, Albany, N. Y., David M. Fleming, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Milwaukee, Wis., of counsel), for appellants.

C. Theodore Carlson, Tabner, Carlson, Daffner & Farrell, Albany, N. Y., for appellees.

Leo Pfeffer, New York City, as amicus curiae for the American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Jewish Labor Committee, Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A., Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbinical Council of America, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, United Synagogue of America, The National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council in behalf of the one hundred and eight Jewish Community Councils throughout the United States.

Before KAUFMAN, KEARSE and BRIGHT, ^* Circuit Judges.

IRVING R. KAUFMAN, Circuit Judge:

To many Americans, the state's noblest function is the education of our nation's youth. We entrust this responsibility largely to the public schools, and hope our children grow into responsible citizens by learning the enduring values of Western Civilization we all share-an appreciation of critical reasoning, a commitment to democratic institutions, and a dedication to principles of fairness. In this immigrant nation of dreamers and dissidents, however, no broad consensus regarding the spiritual side of the human condition exists. Our Founding Fathers recognized the disharmony and drafted the Bill of Rights to require the separation of church and state. Accordingly, religious activity under the aegis of the government is strongly discouraged, and in some circumstances-for example, the classroom-is barred. The sacred practices of religious instruction and prayer, the Framers foresaw, are best left to private institutions-the family and houses of worship. In short, logic, tradition, and law create in our nation a "wall between church and state," Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18, 67 S.Ct. 504, 513, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). In this case, brought by students seeking to force a public school to allow joint prayer sessions in the school before classes begin, we are asked to dismantle that wall. Because the First Amendment does not require-or even allow-such permission, we affirm the dismissal below of the students' complaint.

I.

Questions of religious freedom can depend on sensitive issues of fact, and we turn first to the particular circumstances in which this case arose. In 1978, several students at Guilderland High School organized a group called "Students for Voluntary Prayer." They sought permission in September 1978 from the school's principal, Charles Ciaccio, to conduct communal prayer meetings in a classroom immediately before the school day commenced. The group noted that it was not seeking supervision or faculty involvement, and stated that its activities were voluntary and would not conflict with other school functions.

The principal denied the request by letter dated September 23, 1978. Shortly thereafter, the Superintendent of the Guilderland School District refused permission. The Guilderland Board of Education voted on December 19, 1978, and again on March 6, 1979, to deny the group's request. Six students ¹ filed suit in June 1979 individually and on behalf of those students similarly situated. They stated in the complaint that the defendants-the Board of Education and its individual members, the Superintendent of the school district, and Ciaccio, the principal-violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, and equal protection. The students sought declaratory relief and requested the court to enjoin the defendants from denying them a classroom for their prayer meetings. The complaint prayed for monetary damages as well.

On April 16, 1980, Judge McCurn granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that the students were not entitled to relief as a matter of law and dismissing the complaint. After addressing several procedural points, ² the court found that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment barred the school from permitting the students to conduct prayer meetings in a classroom. Applying the tripartite test for Establishment Clause analysis formulated by the Supreme Court, Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646, 653, 100 S.Ct. 840, 846, 63 L.Ed.2d 94 (1980); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105 (1971), Judge McCurn found that while a school's decision involving the use of school premises might have a secular purpose, the granting of the group's request would have had the impermissible effect of advancing religion. In addition, if the prayer meetings were conducted, an excessive entanglement between a supposedly secular school and clearly religious activities would result because faculty surveillance would be needed to assure that the meetings were voluntary.

Further Judge McCurn found the school's refusal did not violate the students' rights freely to exercise their religious beliefs. Moreover, even if some infringement occurred, the compelling state interest in maintaining the separation between church and state justified that restriction. Judge McCurn also rejected the students' freedom of speech and association arguments. Finally, the court found that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment did not require a religious organization to be treated in a manner similar to the secular student groups permitted to use the school's facilities. The students appeal the dismissal of their complaint.

II.

The First Amendment's language protecting religious freedom is both crisp and elegant: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." While the ambiguities of history prevent us from determining exactly how the Founding Fathers intended the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses to interact, coherent themes exist. The Supreme Court's identification and elaboration of doctrine provides guidance to legislators, courts, and even school boards, in an era when the government's regulation of daily life is pervasive and when our nation's religious composition is far more diverse than that of post-Revolutionary America.

First Amendment jurisprudence emerges from a colonial background that reflected varying justifications for the separation of church and state. ³ An evangelical view, associated with Roger Williams, feared the corruptive influence of secular statism on religious purity. Religious freedom and separatism, therefore, were necessary for the protection of the spiritual life. A more worldly school of thought, associated with Jefferson, sought to protect the state from the church, and found that the erection of a "wall of separation," Everson, supra, was necessary. The third view, that of James Madison, was that both religion and the state would prosper if freed from the undesirable effects each presented to the other.

The Supreme Court has consolidated these historical antecedents ⁴ to articulate three major policies underlying religious freedom: voluntarism of religious thought and conduct, government neutrality towards religion, and the separation of church and state. ⁵ Voluntarism recognizes that private choice, not official coercion, should form the basis for religious conduct and belief. Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U.S. 664, 694, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1424, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). Governmental neutrality reinforces voluntarism, for it assures its citizens, on the one hand, that no official imprimatur lies behind any set of religious beliefs or practices and, on the other, that no particular dogma is officially condemned. School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 222, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1571, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 431, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 1267, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962). Separation is meant to foster voluntarism and neutrality, and also to preserve the integrity of both religion and government. See Engel v. Vitale, supra, 370 U.S. at 431, 82 S.Ct. at 1267.

As the role of government became more pervasive, a tension between principles of voluntarism and separation inevitably emerged. A strict reading of the Establishment Clause's erection of the wall between church and state would require government to refrain from providing even the most essential public services to religious organizations. Such inflexible separation, however, threatens free exercise, and therefore the principle of neutrality requires the state to provide fire and police services and even some forms of financial assistance to religious schools and organizations. Roemer v. Board of Public Works, 426 U.S. 736, 746-47, 96 S.Ct. 2337, 2344-2345, 49 L.Ed.2d 179 (1976). ⁶ Accommodation of these three constitutional values is a trying task, but one in which courts are compelled to engage.

III.

When we apply these doctrines-voluntarism, neutrality, and separation-to the facts of this case, we discover that many of the Supreme Court's religion decisions arose in a somewhat different context. Most controversies involving prayer in the schools or the granting of financial assistance to religious schools involved an Establishment Clause challenge to state statutes or regulations ⁷ supporting religious activity-the recitation of classroom prayers, School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, supra, the use of school facilities for religious instruction, McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 68 S.Ct. 461, 92 L.Ed. 649 (1948), and the reimbursement for costs incurred in teaching-related activities, e. g., ...