Koenick v. Felton

• Decision Date: 02 July 1997
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. AW-96-3111.
• Citation: 973 F.Supp. 522
• Parties: Judith M. KOENICK, Plaintiff, v. Reginald M. FELTON, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

973 F.Supp. 522

Judith M. KOENICK, Plaintiff, v. Reginald M. FELTON, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. AW-96-3111.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

July 2, 1997.

Eugene R. Fidell, Washington, DC, Dwight H. Sullivan, Baltimore, MD, for plaintiff.

Roger W. Titus, Patrick L. Clancy, Kevin B. Collins, Joel William Ruderman, Rockville, MD, for defendants.

Mohammed T. Mehdi, Ph.D., Secretary General of the Nat. Council on Islamic Affairs, New York City, pro se movant.

Robert D. Wing, Bradley S. Albert, Washington, DC, for amicus curiae American Jewish Congress.

Robert J. Kim, Arthur Robbins, Greenbelt, MD, for amicus curiae Nat. Council on Islamic Affairs.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WILLIAMS, District Judge.

Before the Court are Cross-Motions for Summary Judgment filed by Plaintiff and Defendants. A hearing on these Motions was held on June 30, 1997. The Court has considered the arguments presented in the written submissions and at the hearing, and has studied the relevant case law. Accordingly, the Court has determined that summary judgment for the Defendants is appropriate.

Background

This case surrounds the constitutionality of a Maryland statute providing for a public school holiday from "[t]he Friday before Easter and from then through the Monday after Easter," Md. Educ. Code Ann. § 7-103(c)(1)(iii) (hereafter "§ 7-103"). Plaintiff is a teacher employed by the Board of Education of Montgomery County, and she is Jewish. Plaintiff asserts that when she "has observed certain days of Passover — an important Jewish holiday — as religious holidays, she has been required to use personal leave days or leave without pay" from her employment.¹ Revised Second Amended Complaint at 4.

In Count I of the Revised Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that § 7-103 violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. In Count II, she alleges that the statute violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Summary Judgment Principles

Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and when the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "Summary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole, which are designed to secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 327, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2555, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (citations omitted). See also Bland v. Norfolk and Southern Railroad Co., 406 F.2d 863, 866 (4th Cir.1969).

In determining whether genuine and material factual disputes exist, resolution of which requires trial, the Court has reviewed the parties' memoranda and the many exhibits attached thereto. In considering each of the respective Motions for Summary Judgment, the Court has construed all facts, and all reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Matsushita Electrical Industrial Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). Applying these principles to this case, the Court concludes that summary judgment for the Defendants must be granted.

Discussion

I. Establishment Clause

Count I of Plaintiff's Complaint alleges that § 7-103 violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion ...," and this provision binds the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303, 60 S.Ct. 900, 903, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940).

A. The Question of Applicable Standard

Plaintiff's interpretation of Establishment Clause jurisprudence is that if a statute facially prefers one religion over others, it should be subject to strict scrutiny. Otherwise, Plaintiff argues, the statute should be subject to the three-part test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). In espousing this interpretation of the case law, Plaintiff relies heavily on Hernandez v. Comm'r of Internal Revenue, 490 U.S. 680, 695, 109 S.Ct. 2136, 2146, 104 L.Ed.2d 766 (1989). In Hernandez, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to an IRS determination regarding the charitable contribution status of payments made to the Church of Scientology in return for religious services. In framing its analysis, the Court provided the following guidance:

when it is claimed that a denominational preference exists, the initial inquiry is whether the law facially differentiates among religions. If no such facial preference exists, we proceed to apply the customary three-pronged Establishment Clause inquiry derived from Lemon v. Kurtzman.

Hernandez, 490 U.S. at 695, 109 S.Ct. at 2146.

However, it is not clear that this Hernandez approach should precede and potentially preempt the analysis of Establishment Clause challenges through the prism of the Lemon test. In response to the somewhat unclear dictates of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, the Fourth Circuit recently stated that "until the Supreme Court overrules Lemon and provides an alternative analytical framework, this Court must rely on Lemon in evaluating the constitutionality of legislation under the Establishment Clause." Barghout v. Bureau of Kosher Meat & Food Control, 66 F.3d 1337, 1342 n. 11 (4th Cir. 1995). Moreover, as Defendant has argued and as neither Plaintiff nor the Court's own research has refuted, no case has ever applied this strict scrutiny test in the context of an Establishment Clause challenge to government recognition of holidays that were once or now are religiously based. Hence, analysis of this case through the Hernandez lens appears inappropriate.

Furthermore, even if this Court were to apply Hernandez, the Court would conclude that this case does not qualify for strict scrutiny under the Hernandez analysis. Consequently, the Lemon test will govern in this case regardless of the applicability of Hernandez. In reaching this conclusion, the Court has considered Plaintiff's argument that the statute constitutes a facial preference because "Section 7-103 aids only one religion." Plaintiff's Opposition and Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment at 10. The Court has also weighed Plaintiff's claim that the statute creates an unconstitutional denominational preference between Christianity and other religions, as well as between Eastern and Western Christianity (which do not identify the date of Easter in the same manner).

However, the Court has concluded that these arguments must fall because they are premised on an incorrect conception of Easter. As the Defendants note, Easter itself is a highly secularized holiday. With reference to the similarly secularized holiday of Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court has noted that "[t]he Christmas holiday in our national culture contains both secular and sectarian elements." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 709 n. 15, 104 S.Ct. 1355, 1378 n. 15, 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984). The statutory vacation provided by § 7-103 surrounds Easter. Not only does § 7-103 fail to mention "Good Friday," but it also provides a vacation day on the Monday after Easter, a day with no religious significance. Consequently, the Court believes that § 7-103 would fall short of receiving strict scrutiny review under the Hernandez standard even if that standard were applicable. The proper frame of analysis for this Establishment Clause challenge is the three-part test set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman.

B. The Three-Part Lemon Test

In Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court set forth a three-part test for determining whether a state action violates the Establishment Clause. As explained in Lemon, in order for a state action to be in compliance with the Establishment Clause, it must:

(1) have a secular purpose

(2) have the principle or primary effect of neither advancing nor inhibiting religion; and

(3) not foster an excessive entanglement with religion.

Lemon, 403 U.S. at 612-613, 91 S.Ct. at 2111. See also North Carolina Civil Liberties Union Legal Foundation v. Constangy, 947 F.2d 1145, 1147 (4th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 505 U.S. 1219, 112 S.Ct. 3027, 120 L.Ed.2d 898 (1992) (If a state action violates even one of the three prongs of the Lemon test, that state action is unconstitutional.)

In reviewing the record in this case, the Court has concluded that the first prong of the Lemon test is satisfied. As Defendants have argued, the high number of students and teachers who would be absent on the Friday and Monday surrounding Easter would disrupt the effectiveness of instruction and would require monetary outlay for the hiring substitute teachers. Defendant has explained that it is for this same reason that the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are excluded from the school calendar if they fall on weekdays. See Memorandum in Support of Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment at 5, n. 8 and Exhibits 7 and 8.

Plaintiff and the Amicus argue that although there is evidence supporting the decision to close school for the aforementioned reason on these Jewish holidays, there is no comparable evidence to support the closing for the days specified in § 7-103. This argument is specious, because schools have been closed on the days specified in § 7-103 since the establishment of organized public schools in Maryland more than 130 years ago, and thus it has not been possible to collect such data. The Court is sufficiently persuaded that these closings are supported by the same pragmatic secular purposes as the...