Croft v. Governor of Texas
| Decision Date | 02 January 2008 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 3:06-CV-434-M. |
| Citation | 530 F.Supp.2d 825 |
| Parties | David Wallace CROFT and Shannon Kristine Croft, parents of minor children, Plaintiffs, v. GOVERNOR OF the State of TEXAS, Rick Perry, and Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
W. Dean Cook, Law Office of Dean Cook, Plano, TX, for Plaintiffs.
Marianna Vishnevetsky Grayson, Brantley Starr, R. Ted Cruz, Susanna Dokupil, Office of the Texas Attorney General, Austin, TX, Thomas P. Brandt, Joshua A. Skinner, Fanning Harper & Martinson, Dallas, TX; for Defendants.
BARBARA M.G. LYNN, District Judge.
Before the Court are Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment, alleging that Texas' moment of silence law, Texas Educ.Code § 25.082(d), violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution; Defendant Rick Perry's Cross Motion for Summary Judgment and Defendant Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District's Motion for Summary Judgment, both advocating upholding the statute as constitutional.
Having considered the briefs, relevant authorities, and oral argument, for the reasons stated herein, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs Motion, GRANTS Defendant Rick Perry's Cross-Motion, and DENIES as moot the motion of Defendant Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District ("School District"). Although this case presents a close question because the Texas legislature was less than clear in articulating the secular purpose of the Texas moment of silence law, the Court finds a secular purpose and concludes that the law is constitutional.
Plaintiffs David Wallace Croft and Shannon Kristine Croft, as parents and next friends of their minor children, filed suit, alleging that the Texas moment of silence law is unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, both as applied and on its face.
At the oral argument held in this case on August 1, 2007, Plaintiffs agreed to a dismissal of their claims against the School District, since Plaintiffs are only challenging the constitutionality of the statute as it was enacted by the state legislature, not the policy as enacted by the School. District. In an Order dated November 2, 2006, 2006 WL 3151521, this Court dismissed Plaintiffs' as applied claims against the School District for failure to plead that the School District enacted the policy "with deliberate indifference to the `known or obvious consequences' that constitutional violations would result." Therefore, the Court DENIES the School District's Motion as moot.
The Plaintiff and the Governor move for summary judgment on Plaintiffs' remaining claim — their facial challenge to the moment of silence law. The statute at issue, which became effective September 1, 2003, provides:
The board of trustees of each school district shall provide for the observance of one minute of silence at each school in the district following the recitation of the pledges of allegiance to the United States and Texas flags under Subsection (b). During the one-minute period, each student may, as the student chooses, reflect, pray, meditate, or engage in any other silent activity that is not likely to interfere with or distract another student. Each teacher or other school employee in charge of students during that period shall ensure that each of those students remains silent and does not act in a manner that is likely to interfere with or distract another student.
Tex. Educ.Code § 25.082(d). Prior to the enactment of this statute, there were two statutes that related to the subject matter of § 25.082(d), which provided:
Sec. 25.082. SCHOOL DAY.
(b) A school district may provide for a period of silence at the beginning of the first class of each school day during Which a student may reflect or meditate.
Sec. 25.901. EXERCISE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PRAY. A public school student has an absolute right to individually, voluntarily, and silently pray or meditate in school in a manner that does not disrupt the instructional or other activities of the school. A person may not require, encourage, or coerce a student to engage in or refrain from such prayer or meditation during any school activity.
Tex. Educ.Code (1995). Section 25.901 was not changed by the Legislature. Subsection (d), the moment of silence statute at issue, is in part a revision of § 25.182(b). The legislature also added a new subsection (b) that required each school district to require students to recite the pledges of allegiance to the United States flag and the Texas flag, providing an exception "for students excused from participation in the pledges upon written request from their parents.
The legislature made five changes to the earlier version of § 25.082(b), which became the challenged provision, § 25.082(d): (1) it made the provision of a moment of silence mandatory rather than discretionary; (2) it changed "period of silence" to "one minute of silence"; (3) it added the word "pray" to the list of designated options; (4) it added the catch-all "or engage in any other silent activity that is not 114 to interfere with or distract another student"; and (5) it added a provision for teachers or other school employees to maintain discipline during the one-minute period.
The Supreme Court established a framework for analyzing challenges under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct, 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). The Lemon test has three prongs: "first, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion ...; finally, the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion." Id. at 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105. In other words, the purpose and effect must be secular, and the statute cannot cause an improper association between the government and religion. If all three prongs are satisfied, the challenged state action survives constitutional scrutiny.
Four key cases have applied the Lemon test to state-enacted "moment of silence" statutes: Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985); Bown v. Gwinnett County School District, 112 F.3d 1464 (11th Cir.1997); Brown v. Gilmore, 258 F.3d 265 (4th Cir.2001); and May v. Cooperman, 780 F.2d 240 (3d Cir. 1985). Jaffree and May invalidated the challenged moment of silence laws, and Brown and Bown upheld them. In each case, some legislative history suggested that for some legislators, the purpose of the laws was to restore prayer to public schools. Given the importance of these cases to the Court's reasoning under the first prong of the Lemon test, the Court summarizes their reasoning.
In Wallace v. Jaffree the United States Supreme Court determined that the Alabama legislature and the Alabama governor were acting in defiance of the, prohibition against prayer in schools. 472 U.S. 38, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985). The challenged statute was Alabama Code § 16-1-20.1, which provided:
At the commencement of the first class of each day in all grades in all public schools the teacher in charge of the room in which each class is held may announce that a period of silence not to exceed one minute in duration shall be observed for meditation or voluntary prayer, and during any such, period no other activities shall be engaged in.
At a preliminary injunction hearing, the district court heard testimony from State Senator Donald G. Holmes, the prime sponsor of the bill. Senator Holmes testified that the bill was an "effort to return voluntary prayer to our public schools ... it is a beginning and a step in the right direction." Senator Holmes testified that other than this purpose, he had "no other purpose in mind." This testimony was in line with a statement that Senator Holmes had inserted into the legislative record — that the statute was an "effort to return voluntary prayer" to the public schools.
The Supreme Court found this "unrebutted "evidence of legislative intent" to be "confirmed by a consideration of the relationship between this statute" and other proposed versions of the statute. Id. at 58, 105 S.Ct. 2479. The Court then compared the statute to its predecessor, § 16-1-20, which had provided:
At the commencement of the first class each day in the first through six grades in all public schools, the teacher in charge of the room in which each such class is held shall announce that a period of silence, not to exceed one minute in duration, shall be observed for meditation, and during any such period, silence shall be maintained and no activities engaged in.
The Court stated that the "only significant textual difference" was the "addition of the words or voluntary prayer," although the statute also made the moment of silence permissive instead of mandatory by substituting "may" for "shall" in the section providing for a moment of silence, in grades seven through twelve.1 Id. at 59, 105 S.Ct. 2479. The Court found that the earlier statute contained "nothing that prevented any student from engaging in voluntary prayer during a silent minute of meditation" and that the state had "not identified any secular purpose that was not fully served by § 16-1-20 before the enactment of § 16-1-20.1." Id. The Court found that the Alabama legislature revised the statute "for the sole purpose of expressing the State's endorsement of prayer activities for one minute at the beginning of each school day." Id. at 60, 105 S.Ct. 2479. The Court further held that the addition of "or voluntary prayer" to the meditation permitted by the statute indicated "that the State intended to characterize prayer as a favored practice." Id.
Governor George Wallace, who had replaced the governor who was in office when § 16-1-20.1 was passed, argued that the law was "best understood as a...
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Croft v. Governor of Texas
...it added a provision for teachers or other school employees to maintain discipline during the one-minute period. Croft v. Governor of Tex., 530 F.Supp.2d 825, 829 (N.D.Tex.2008). The 2003 statutory section, on the whole, also made the following changes: (1) it added the pledge of allegiance......