Johnson v. Huntington Beach Union High Sch. Dist.

• Citation: 137 Cal.Rptr. 43,68 Cal.App.3d 1
• Parties: Bruce JOHNSON et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants and Respondents. Civ. 15738.
• Decision Date: 11 March 1977
• Court: California Court of Appeals

Page 43

137 Cal.Rptr. 43

68 Cal.App.3d 1

Bruce JOHNSON et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT et al., Defendants and Respondents.

Civ. 15738.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 2, California.

March 11, 1977.

Christopher Hall and Kenneth A. Roberts, Huntington Beach, for plaintiffs and appellants.

Rutan & Tucker and David C. Larsen, Newport Beach, for defendants and respondents.

Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith and David A. Lehrer, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of defendants and respondents.

OPINION

TAMURA, Associate Justice.

Plaintiffs (high school students) sought judicial relief from a refusal of the Huntington Beach Union High School District (district) to permit a voluntary student Bible study club to meet and conduct its activities on the school campus during the school day. The trial court sustained the district's action and denied plaintiffs the relief sought.

The operative facts set forth in the stipulated facts on which the cause was heard and submitted may be summarized as follows: The district is charged with supervising and establishing rules and regulations for high schools within the district. Plaintiffs are students at Edison High School, a public tax- supported secondary school under the jurisdiction of the district.

Pursuant to statutory authority, ¹ the district has provided for recognition of student clubs ² and has prescribed regulations under which such clubs may operate on high school campuses. ³ Under the district's rules, student organizations may not have free use of classrooms or school facilities other than by applying for and receiving recognition, i.e., official approval to operate on the campus as a student club. For many years the district has permitted and still permits high schools under its jurisdiction to grant recognition to student clubs and to permit such clubs to use classrooms and other space for club meetings and to publicize their activities through the school newspaper and school bulletin boards. The district did not, however, permit student religious clubs to meet on the school campus during the school day. ⁴

On January 8, 1974, the district passed an interim policy resolution permitting student religious clubs to meet on campus during the school day pending legal clarification from the Orange County Counsel and the Attorney General. The County Counsel informed the district that it could not constitutionally permit student religious clubs to meet on campus during the school day. Consequently the district rescinded its interim resolution and reinstated its longstanding policy of denying recognition to student religious groups. Subsequently the Attorney General also rendered an opinion supporting the conclusion of the County Counsel and the action taken by the district. (59 Ops. Cal.Atty.Gen. 214.)

Over 100 Edison High School students responded to the district's action with a written application seeking formal recognition of a club whose express purpose was 'to enable those participating to know God better . . . by prayerfully studying the Bible' and whose membership would be open only to those who 'have a genuine interest in the fulfilling of the purpose of this organization.' ⁵ School officials at Edison High rejected the petition and the district's board of trustees did likewise.

Plaintiffs filed suit for injunctive and declaratory relief to establish their claimed rights to official club recognition, to use school classrooms and other space during the school day for club meetings, to use bulletin boards and similar facilities for the posting of club activities, and to have access to the school newspaper for purposes of publicizing club events. The cause was heard on the pleadings and stipulated facts. Following argument and submission, the trial judge rendered an intended decision that school recognition of plaintiffs' Bible study club would impermissibly advance religion and would cause the state to penetrate the federal and state constitutional barriers between church and state. ⁶ Judgment was entered decreeing that the district was prohibited from recognizing plaintiffs' Bible study club or from assisting plaintiffs in their efforts to form a religious club and that the school's posture of nonrecognition did not violate plaintiffs' free exercise or other First Amendment guarantees. Plaintiffs appeal from that judgment.

Plaintiffs do not challenge either the district's authority to promulgate rules for the operation of student clubs on campus or the validity of the existing rules. ⁷ They attack the judgment below on the ground that there are no federal or state constitutional proscriptions against school authorities permitting plaintiffs' Bible club to meet and conduct its activities on campus during the school day on the same footing as other student clubs and that refusal to grant such permission violates plaintiffs' First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. From the analysis which follows, we have concluded that the issues were correctly resolved by the trial court and that the judgment should be affirmed.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides in relevant part: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ..' In erecting a wall of separation between church and state, the framers of our Constitution acted upon the belief "that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.' (Citation.) When government . . . allies itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result is that it incurs 'the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs." (Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 221--222, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 1571, 10 L.Ed.2d 844, quoting Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 431, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601.) Provisions of the First Amendment, including the Establishment Clause, are subsumed under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and govern state action. (Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 760, fn. 2, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948.)

Preservation of religious liberty and the maintenance of governmental neutrality have undergone their severest test in the context of religious exercises within school corridors. In quick succession the Supreme Court of the United States passed upon two 'release time' programs which were challenged as violative of the Establishment Clause. Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 68 S.Ct. 461, 92 L.Ed. 649, put before the court a program whereby the school turned over its classrooms during the school day to religious groups which, one day a week for 30 minutes, substituted religious training for the secular education provided under the compulsory education law. The court held that the use of tax-supported property for religious instruction during a time when students were compelled by law to attend school resulted in the state becoming an active participant in religious affairs and thereby violated its constitutional obligation of neutrality. (333 U.S. at pp. 209--210, 68 S.Ct. 461.)

Sensitive to the religious needs of its pupils but cognizant of its constitutional duties, New York devised a release time program whereby students were released from school to receive spiritual training at the church of their belief. Students were released only upon written request of their parents; those not released remained in the classroom. This program withstood constitutional scrutiny in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 72 S.Ct. 679, 96 L.Ed. 954, Justices Black, Jackson and Frankfurter, dissenting. The court noted that while it is the philosophy of the First Amendment to erect a citadel where neither state nor church would invade the precinct of the other, not all cooperation between the secular and the religious is condemned. (343 U.S. at pp. 312--313, 72 S.Ct. 679.) As much as the state must remain neutral in the affairs of religion, neither can it assume a posture of hostility. (343 U.S. at pp. 313--314, 72 S.Ct 679.) Thus, a course of accommodation involving nothing more than school officials adjusting educational schedules to meet sectarian needs of its students was found consistent with constitutional precepts. (343 U.S. at p. 314, 72 S.Ct. 679. ⁸ )

A state policy of accommodation, however, can overstep constitutional limits and becomes an impermissible form of aid to religion. In Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844, school officials instituted a practice whereby passages of the Bible were read without comment at the beginning of each school day. Those students not wishing to participate were permitted to absent themselves. The court noted that although our heritage and culture is in part grounded in the belief in the almighty (374 U.S. at pp. 212--213, 83 S.Ct. 1560), the Constitution mandates governmental neutrality which neither prefers one religion over another nor advances all religion but instead creates a sanctuary where all religions may flourish without governmental interference. (374 U.S. at pp. 217--219, 83 S.Ct. 1560.) Governmental neutrality and religious freedom, the court observed, can be preserved only by the segregation of secular activity from religious pursuit through the banishment of all governmental allegiance with religion. (374 U.S. at pp. 216--217, 83 S.Ct. 1560.) The court concluded that state sponsorship of Bible reading during the school day violated the principle of neutrality, placed the state behind religious inculcation and infringed the free exercise rights of nonbelievers. (374 U.S. at pp. 222--227, 83 S.Ct. 1560; see also: Engel v. Vitale, supra, 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601 (prohibiting the recitation of prayer at the beginning of the school day).)

In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d...