Gaines v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 01 September 1976
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 76-435-M.
• Citation: 421 F. Supp. 337
• Parties: Lynda GAINES et al., Plaintiffs, v. Winston D. ANDERSON et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

421 F. Supp. 337

Lynda GAINES et al., Plaintiffs, v. Winston D. ANDERSON et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 76-435-M.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

September 1, 1976.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Daniel D. Levenson, William J. Eisen, Lourie & Cutler; and John Reinstein, Civil Liberties Union of Mass., Boston, Mass., for plaintiffs.

Alfred J. Mainini, Mainini & Mainini, Framingham, Mass., for defendants.

Before COFFIN, Chief Circuit Judge, and MURRAY and SKINNER, District Judges.

OPINION

FRANK J. MURRAY, District Judge.

The plaintiffs bring this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to challenge the constitutionality of the Massachusetts statute, and the guidelines of the school committee of the town of Framingham adopted to implement it, which requires the observance of a period of silence at the opening of the school day in the public schools. The statute reads:

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 such class is held shall announce that a period of silence not to exceed one minute in duration shall be observed for meditation or prayer, and during any such period silence shall be maintained and no activities engaged in.

St.1966, ch. 130, as amended by St.1973, ch. 621; Mass.Gen.Laws ch. 71, § 1A.

On January 12, 1976 the school committee adopted a resolution ". . . that the School Committee comply with the law, Chapter 71, Section 1A of the M.G.L. until such time as the courts rule the Chapter in violation of the Constitution". On January 27, the school committee adopted guidelines to carry out the statutory provisions. The guidelines have been observed since February 2, the day this action was brought. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to vindicate alleged violations of their rights under the United States Constitution. A three-judge court was convened to hear and determine the claim for injunctive relief. 28 U.S.C. § 2284.

I

Plaintiffs are twelve students who attend the public schools of the town of Framingham, and the parents of these students.¹ Defendants are the members of the school committee and the superintendent of schools of Framingham. In their complaint plaintiffs allege that the statute as amended and the guidelines violate their rights under the First² and Fourteenth³ Amendments in the following respects: (1) they establish a religious exercise in the public schools in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, (2) they mandate a particular format for the religious exercise in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and (3) they interfere with the parents' due process rights exclusively to supervise the religious upbringing of their children in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The statute is clear in its requirements. It provides that at the opening of the school day in all grades in the public schools a minute of silence shall be maintained during which no overt activities shall take place. The teacher in charge of the schoolroom is required to announce the minute of silence to be observed for meditation or prayer. It is clearly contemplated that this exercise shall be observed in a public building under general supervision of a public school teacher. Under the guidelines teachers are to remind students not observing silence of their obligation to obey the school rules and regulations, and to refer persistent violators to the school principal. If the principal fails to achieve the cooperation of the violator, the principal then is required to follow the established procedures for dealing with breaches of school regulations.⁴ Because we conclude that the statute and the guidelines do not advance or inhibit religion, or coerce any student into participating in any activity which infringes his liberty of conscience or interferes with the free exercise of his religion, we do not agree that they violate plaintiffs' rights under the Constitution.

II

The First Amendment commands in part that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The Supreme Court has stated the test for measuring the compliance of a challenged statute with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in the following language:

. . . what are the purpose and primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.

Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 222, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1571, 10 L.Ed.2d 844

(1963). In Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973), the Court referred to a three-part test of any law challenged on establishment grounds: (1) the law must reflect a clearly secular purpose, (2) it must have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and (3) it must avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.

The application of any of these criteria to state action challenged as violative of the Establishment Clause cannot be scientifically precise, see Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 678, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971), for the line which separates the secular from the sectarian is an elusive one. Application of these criteria requires careful consideration of the values embodied in the First Amendment as revealed by its history and the Supreme Court cases which have explicated it. It is enough to note here that what is at stake in the First Amendment religion clauses is the policy of separating Church and State to the extent practicable in a nation whose institutions reflect that our heritage is religious and whose people in large measure adhere to a variety of religious beliefs and creeds. The Court's opinions generally have recognized that the underlying policy of the First Amendment's prohibitions is the prevention of such dependence of religion on government and such interference by government with religion "that, as history teaches us, is apt to lead to strife and frequently strain a political system to the breaking point". Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U.S. 664, 694, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1424, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring); see Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 8-11, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 425-27, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962); Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, supra, 374 U.S. at 307, 83 S.Ct. 1560 (Goldberg, J., concurring).

In applying the criteria to the statute challenged in this case, we consider and appraise the history of the 1966 enactment, the 1973 amendment,⁵ the statutory language employed, and the involvement of the state under the statute in the public school setting.

III

The plaintiffs infer an unconstitutional purpose from the timing of the 1966 enactment and the meaning of the word "meditation". They argue that the enactment took place in the "aftermath of the invalidation" of Bible reading and prayer in the Massachusetts public schools by the Supreme Judicial Court in Attorney General v. School Committee of North Brookfield, 347 Mass. 775, 199 N.E.2d 553 (1964), to fill the void caused by the invalidation. They contend this history leads to the conclusion that it was not the intent of the legislature to further secular ends. We note that the statute was enacted in 1966 after the decisions in Schempp in 1963 and North Brookfield in 1964, but we think plaintiffs' arguments do not withstand close scrutiny.

The timing of the 1966 enactment does not necessarily support an inference that the Massachusetts Legislature was motivated by an unconstitutional purpose to promote religion. The enactment of this legislation in the aftermath of Schempp and North Brookfield is completely consistent with a legislative purpose to promote secular purposes in a manner that is constitutionally neutral as to religion. We doubt that timing alone could ever be sufficient to establish an unconstitutional purpose to advance religion. Compare Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 89 S.Ct. 266, 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968). Other materials invariably must be considered. Cf. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 453, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961).

Here, the legislative history, the statutory language, and its likely operation and effect, all suggest that this legislation was designed to serve secular objectives without unconstitutionally advancing religion. Although the legislative history is sparse, the available materials establish that the original bill was entitled "An Act providing for a moment of silent prayer at the beginning of each day in the public schools of the Commonwealth and the recitation of the pledge of allegiance". The pertinent section of the bill provided that "The school day in all the public schools of the Commonwealth shall commence in silence for one moment so that any pupil who so desires may offer a prayer in silence". Upon referral of the bill to the Legislative Committee on Education the word "prayer" was stricken from the title and body of the bill and the word "meditation" was substituted. Subsequently, the Massachusetts Senate changed the bill in certain respects but retained the Committee language of "meditation".

We think that in striking the word "prayer" out of the bill and substituting the word "meditation" the Massachusetts Legislature demonstrated awareness of the distinction between these two words and an intention to further secular purposes without infringing the values protected by the Establishment Clause. A state statute which mandates a moment of silence in a public school setting is not per se an invalid exercise of legislative power. All that the statute requires...