Hoppock v. Twin Falls School Dist. No. 411

• Decision Date: 10 September 1991
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 91-0157.
• Citation: 772 F. Supp. 1160
• Parties: Ellen HOPPOCK and Patricia Hoppock, minors under the age of 18, By and Through their next friends David HOPPOCK, Jeanne Hoppock, and Sheila Slaughter, a minor under the age of 18, By and Through her next friends Bruce Slaughter and Janet Slaughter, Plaintiffs, v. TWIN FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Idaho

772 F. Supp. 1160

Ellen HOPPOCK and Patricia Hoppock, minors under the age of 18, By and Through their next friends David HOPPOCK, Jeanne Hoppock, and Sheila Slaughter, a minor under the age of 18, By and Through her next friends Bruce Slaughter and Janet Slaughter, Plaintiffs, v. TWIN FALLS SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 411, Defendant.

Civ. No. 91-0157.

United States District Court, D. Idaho.

September 10, 1991.

Craig Marcus, Marcus, Merrick & Montgomery, Boise, Idaho, for plaintiffs.

Fritz A. Wonderlich, Benoit, Alexander, Sinclair, Doerr, Harwood & High, Twin Falls, Idaho, for defendant.

MEMORANDUM DECISION

CALLISTER, Senior District Judge.

This case challenges a federal statute that employs questionable means to achieve a laudable goal. The federal statute at issue, the Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. §§ 4071-4074 (1990) (EAA), requires public secondary schools to provide student religious clubs the same access to school facilities that other student clubs receive. To achieve this commendable result, however, the EAA injects the heavy hand of federal government into local school administration, and forces school districts to ignore provisions of the Idaho Constitution that arguably prohibit religious groups from using school property.

Federal encroachment into areas traditionally left to state or local control has become so commonplace that we as a people are becoming numb to it. But silent complacency simply encourages further intrusions. In this opinion, the Court will examine and reaffirm the sovereign power of the state, and define the constitutional limits on congressional power. As will be developed in this discussion, it is too late in the day for the defendant school district in this particular case to avoid the rude grasp of the EAA, but if this opinion and others constantly reaffirm the potential power of state sovereignty, future cases may go differently and the pendulum will swing back in favor of the states and local control.

In this particular case, the parties have stipulated to the facts which the Court will now review. The plaintiffs, in May of 1991, consisted of three ninth grade students and their parents. The students attended Robert Stuart Junior High School in Twin Falls School District No. 411 (District). The District is the only named defendant. Students at Robert Stuart Junior High School, and other secondary schools in the District, are permitted to form and join various non-curriculum related student groups which meet after school hours on school premises.

On August 29, 1990, the plaintiffs met with the vice-principal for their school and requested that they be permitted to form a Christian religious club and meet at the school during non-instructional time. The club's purpose was to permit its members to read and discuss the Bible, and to have fellowship and pray together. Membership would be voluntary and open to all students. The matter was eventually referred to the District's Board of Trustees who denied the request in a meeting held December 11, 1990.

The plaintiffs responded by filing this action seeking a declaratory judgment that the District denied plaintiffs' rights under the EAA. In addition, the plaintiffs seek an injunction enjoining the District from treating the plaintiffs differently from other non-curriculum related groups or clubs.

The EAA prohibits public secondary schools that receive federal financial assistance and that maintain a "limited open forum" from denying "equal access" to students who wish to meet within the forum on the basis of the content of the speech at such meetings. Title 20 U.S.C. § 4071(a). In other words, if the school allows one club to meet on school grounds, it may not deny access to other clubs on the basis of the content of their speech. The parties have stipulated that the District receives federal financial assistance and maintains a "limited open forum" under the EAA by allowing other student clubs to use school facilities. The only issue raised in the briefing is whether the Idaho Constitution takes precedence over the EAA and prohibits religious clubs from meeting on school property.

Both parties acknowledge the recent United States Supreme Court case finding the EAA constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, 495 U.S. ___, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990). The Establishment Clause provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. ..." Supreme Court cases have interpreted that clause to require the statute under attack to have a secular purpose, a secular primary effect, and a structure that avoids excessive church-state entanglement. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971).

In Mergens, a case basically identical to this one, the Supreme Court found that the EAA had a secular purpose: The goal of the EAA was to prevent discriminatory censorship whether based on religious, political, or other grounds. The Court also held that the primary effect of the EAA was not to advance religion. In so finding, the Court noted the crucial difference between Government speech endorsing religion — forbidden by the Establishment Clause — and private speech endorsing religion — protected by the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses. Finally, the Court found that the EAA did not create a risk of entanglement between Government and religion because faculty members were specifically prohibited from any participation beyond chaperoning during the religious meetings, and the schools were prohibited from promoting the religious groups.

In the present case, the District argues that even though the EAA may pass scrutiny under the Establishment Clause, the statute requires the District to violate the Idaho Constitution. Specifically, the District cites Article 9, Section 6, of the Idaho Constitution which provides as follows:

No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools.... No books, papers, tracts or documents of any political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools....

In addition, Article 9, Section 5, of the Idaho Constitution provides as follows:

No ... school district ... shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or monies whatever, anything for any sectarian or religious purpose ...; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money or personal property ever be made by ... such public corporation ... for any sectarian or religious purpose.

In interpreting these provisions, the Idaho Supreme Court has held that the framers of the Idaho Constitution intended to more "positively enunciate the separation between church and state than did the framers of the United States Constitution." Epeldi v. Engelking, 94 Idaho 390, 395, 488 P.2d 860, 865 (1971).

Assuming, arguendo,¹ that the EAA would force the District to violate the Idaho Constitution by requiring the District to allow religious clubs to use school buildings for meetings, the issue that must be resolved is this: Which law prevails — federal or state? And the starting place for resolution of that issue is the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, which provides as follows:

The Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

As the Supremacy Clause makes clear, the laws of Congress which are made "in pursuance" of the Constitution will prevail whenever there is a direct conflict with the constitutional law of a state. Silkwood v. Kerr-McGee, 464 U.S. 238, 104 S.Ct. 615, 78 L.Ed.2d 443 (1984).

The threshold inquiry that must be made is whether the EAA was passed "in pursuance" of the Constitution. Mergens answered the question whether Congress, in passing the EAA, complied with the Establishment Clause. But Mergens did not address whether the EAA violated other constitutional limitations on congressional power.

It is very important to remember that Congress is a legislative body possessing only limited powers granted to it by the Constitution. An act of Congress is invalid unless it is affirmatively authorized under the Constitution. State actions, in contrast, are valid as a matter of federal constitutional law unless prohibited, explicitly or implicitly by the Constitution. TRIBE, American Constitutional Law, § 5.2, p. 298 (2d ed. 1988). When Congress passes any law, including the EAA which mandates certain conduct based on the receipt of federal funds, Congress must remain within the limitations imposed both by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution's implicit protections of state sovereignty. TRIBE, supra, at § 5-10, p. 323.

In Mergens, there was only the briefest discussion of whether the EAA violated state sovereignty.² The Thirteen Original States were in existence before the United States, and the states continue to be sovereign within their territories so long as there is no conflict with constitutionally enacted federal law. The chief source of state sovereignty is found in the Tenth Amendment which provides that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states are reserved to the...