Lanner v. Wimmer
| Decision Date | 11 December 1978 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. NC 77-0025. |
| Citation | 463 F. Supp. 867 |
| Parties | Ronald M. LANNER, Harriet E. Lanner, John A. Scherting, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Joanne WIMMER, Thad Carlson, E. Malcolm Allred, Ronald S. Peterson, Maria Ellsworth, constituting the Board of Education for the City of Logan, Utah, James C. Blair, Superintendent of Schools for the City of Logan, Utah, Rulon C. Olsen, Principal, Logan High School, Logan, Utah, Sherman Hansen, Principal, Logan Junior High School, Logan, Utah, and their officers, employees, agents and assigns, and the Utah State Board of Education (Defendant in Intervention), Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Utah |
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Kathryn Collard, Stephen W. Cook, and Judith Romney Wolbach, on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, Salt Lake City, Utah, of counsel, for plaintiffs.
Arthur H. Nielsen and Clark R. Nielsen, of Nielsen, Henriod, Gottfredson & Peck, Salt Lake City, Utah, and David W. Sorenson, Logan, Utah, of counsel, for defendants.
Thomas C. Anderson, Asst. Atty. Gen., State of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, of counsel, for Utah State Board of Education, Defendant in Intervention.
This case presents the question of whether the release-time program of Logan City, Utah, in which its public school students have long been permitted to attend church-operated seminaries for religious instruction during regular school hours, violates the well-established guidelines developed by the Supreme Court concerning the meaning of the Establishment of Religion and Free Exercise Clauses of our Constitution. We echo the words of the Tenth Circuit's own Judge Alfred P. Murrah who observed in Anderson v. Salt Lake City Corporation, 475 F.2d 29 (10th Cir. 1973) that little we can now say concerning the scope and effect of these clauses, can add to what has been so prolificably said elsewhere. This is not a new question. Justice Potter Stewart observes in Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 44 L.Ed. 217 (1975) that over the past decades the Supreme Court has developed, as guidelines, tests with which to identify instances where the objectives of the Establishment Clause have been impaired. The broad Constitutional contours of this field are well-defined. Each such case must then be determined by analysis of its facts, measuring the degree to which it falls within the permitted parameters of that field.
The Plaintiffs are citizens and taxpayers of Logan City, Utah, and are the parents of children who either are attending, have attended, or will attend Logan Junior High School and Logan High School, while the Defendants, Joanne Wimmer, Thad Carlson, Ronald S. Peterson, Maria Ellsworth and E. Malcolm Allred, are members of the Board of Education for the Logan City School District, which is responsible for operating and maintaining the public schools and the Defendant, James C. Blair, is the superintendent of schools for the Logan City School District and the Defendants, Rulon C. Olsen and Sherman Hansen, are the respective principals of Logan High School and Logan Junior High School. The Defendant in Intervention, the Utah State Board of Education, is a state agency operating pursuant to § 53-2-1, et seq., Utah Code Annotated (1953), as amended, which is vested with the general control and supervision of the public school system in the State of Utah. All of the Defendants were sued in their official capacities.
For more than 30 years prior to the commencement of this action, the policy of the Utah State Board of Education (State Board) has permitted students in the ninth through the twelfth grades, upon written request of their parents, to be released one hour per day during school hours for the purpose of receiving religious instruction in regularly sponsored and maintained programs, generally referred to as release-time programs. In accordance with this policy, students of Logan High School and the ninth grade students at Logan Junior High School are released for one class period each day during the school week to participate in a program of instruction offered by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church). Students also may be released upon the same terms to participate in a rather sparsely attended release-time program of instruction in the Old Testament and New Testament, sponsored by several Protestant churches and held in the Presbyterian Church, about one block from the high school. Since the course-content of that program was not questioned, we must set to one side the question of the legality of that program, although it will be generally affected by the conclusions herein.
Not less than two-thirds of the students enrolled at the Logan Junior and Senior High Schools have participated in the LDS release-time program during each of the last five school years. Approximately ninety-five percent (95%) of those students participating were members of the LDS Church. The junior and senior high school release-time programs are conducted in buildings owned, maintained and operated by the LDS Church and which are respectively located adjacent to the Logan Junior High School and Logan Senior High School, which are the only public secondary schools in the city. Each of the two seminary buildings are nearly identical in architectural appearance, style, and color of brick to the adjacent public school building, to which they are connected by grass lawns and sidewalks, or a parking lot, unbroken by streets. The seminary buildings have no fences or other physical barriers surrounding them, but they are designated as such by clearly visible but unobtrusive exterior signs. Students walk freely, unescorted, to and from their classes in the public school buildings and the seminary classrooms.
No LDS seminary class or activity is held or carried on in a public school building, and no public funds or resources are used to aid the release-time seminary program, except for some daily attendance forms, the cost of which is negligible. All costs of the seminary program, other than those paid by the students, are borne by the LDS Church, which maintains the seminary buildings and grounds, including repair, maintenance, custodial services, sprinkling and mowing of lawns, and removal of snow.
The LDS release-time program consists of four courses "Book of Mormon", "Old Testament", "New Testament", and "Church History and Doctrine." The Logan Senior Seminary and the Logan Junior Seminary have taught one of these courses each year in that sequence. Logan High School recognizes two units of credit toward graduation for the successful completion of the Old Testament and New Testament courses. Credit for those courses may not be given to fulfill any of the State Board's required seven and one-half credit hours of designated subjects. However, credit for the Old Testament and New Testament courses is accepted in satisfaction of the seven and one-half elective credits which comprise the remainder of the 15 units of study required by the Utah State Board of Education for graduation from high school. Logan High School requires 16 units of academic credit for graduation during the 10th, 11th and 12th years of high school, with 8 of those credit units to be in required instruction area. A "contact" unit of credit is given, without consideration being given to the nature of the course, for each course taught during the entire year 5 days a week with a 50 minute class period.
Credit for Bible history may be counted as an "elective" but may not fill any obligations for required instruction in the fields of social studies, science, English or literature. No credit is given for any of the release-time courses taken in junior high. A student must complete all four of the release-time courses in order to graduate from the LDS Seminary, which requires the taking of one course at the junior high school level.
The curriculum and course materials utilized in the four release-time classes have been developed, published and provided by the Church Education Division of the LDS Church, as part of an LDS Church Education System which provides a program of religious education to approximately 200,000 high school age students in over 60 countries. About 50,000 of them receive that instruction where credit for Bible study is transferred from the seminary to the public school.
Teachers in the seminaries are required to be members of the LDS Church and are selected and employed by the Church's education division. Full-time instructors must meet the professional and educational qualifications required by the State of Utah for public teachers at the high school level and must have and maintain a teaching certificate from the State of Utah. There are 6 full-time and 1 half-time teachers in the high school seminary and 2 full-time teachers in the junior high seminary. Students enrolled in the program pay a small annual fee for study materials, which include a Bible, looseleaf binder and handouts selected by the teacher but all other costs incurred by the release-time program are paid by the LDS Church. None of the program's costs are paid by public school revenues.
Because of the cost of printing (the LDS Church spends between one and two million dollars to produce materials for each course), only one set of materials has been produced. It is used both in seminaries from which credit is accepted on transfer to public schools and in seminaries where no credit is expected to be received, including early morning and home study programs. Such course materials and aids are thus distributed to the seminary instructors throughout the United States and foreign countries without regard to local needs or requirements. In the front of the New Testament teacher's outline in bold red type is the caveat: ...
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Lanner v. Wimmer, s. 79-1520
...These activities, however, were either isolated events or were discontinued prior to the initiation of this suit. Lanner v. Wimmer, 463 F.Supp. 867, 872-74 (D.Utah 1978). Plaintiffs represent the class of parents of present and future students of Logan High School and Logan Junior High Scho......
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Florey v. Sioux Falls School Dist. 49-5
...category: "those (cases) dealing with religious activities within the public schools." Id. (footnote omitted); cf. Lanner v. Wimmer, 463 F.Supp. 867, 881 (D. Utah 1978) (accreditation of Bible history classes by public school held to violate Establishment Clause). The action challenged here......