Lundberg v. West Monona Community School Dist.
| Decision Date | 19 May 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. C 89-4039.,C 89-4039. |
| Citation | 731 F. Supp. 331 |
| Parties | Duane LUNDBERG, Eric Lundberg, Orville Ives, and Bernadette Ives, Plaintiffs, v. WEST MONONA COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Iowa |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Ray Sullins, Des Moines, Iowa, for plaintiffs.
Mark W. Bennett, Des Moines, Iowa, for defendant.
SUMMARY ORDER
This matter is before the court pursuant to plaintiffs' resisted motion for preliminary injunction. Acknowledging the need for a speedy decision, the court hereby releases the holding of its decision in this brief order, a more complete Memorandum to support this order to follow.1
The court initially notes that a controversial case, such as the one it must now decide, will obviously upset one party and that party's supporters. The court does not reach this decision with ease nor with any sense of satisfaction as to the result. Nonetheless, ours is a system of laws, calling upon this court to follow previous directions of the Supreme Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction is denied on the following grounds: Plaintiffs have failed to establish that a public high school graduation ceremony is a public forum which would permit a parent or a student to force the School Board to allow a prayer to satisfy the rights of that parent or student under the first amendment freedom-of-speech clause; further, plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that public prayer at a high school graduation ceremony forms a basic tenent of their religious beliefs which, if it had been proved, might well compel a different result. Having so held, the court need not go further to consider establishment-of-religion clause concerns. Nevertheless, recognizing that a higher court may disagree with this court's legal conclusions, the court has decided that, even if plaintiffs could have demonstrated a violation of their first amendment right to free speech and free exercise of religion, an invocation and benediction at a public high school graduation ceremony violates the establishment-of-religion clause of the first amendment: prayer will serve a primarily religious purpose in this case and will have the primary effect of advancing religion. Having assumed in the alternative, for the sake of this analysis, that defendant's ban on prayer has violated the plaintiffs' first amendment rights of free speech and free exercise of religion, and having ruled that prayer at this high school graduation ceremony violates the establishment of religion clause, the court must weigh the conflicting clauses and has found that the weight comes down on the side of preventing a violation of the establishment of religion clause, as opposed to preventing the violation of these individual plaintiffs' free speech and free exercise of religion rights. Finally, the court has concluded that plaintiffs have not met their burden of proof necessary for purposes of justifying a preliminary injunction.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
A Memorandum in support of this order will follow.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER1This matter is before the court pursuant to plaintiffs' resisted motion for a preliminary injunction, through which plaintiffs seek to force (enjoin) the West Monona Community School District School Board to allow Reverend Lundberg to be on the program and say prayers in the form of an invocation and benediction, at the high school graduation ceremonies on May 21, 1989. Plaintiffs brought this suit pursuant to Title 42 of the United States Code, section 1983, claiming a violation of their civil rights. Title 28 of the United States Code, section 1343(3), vests jurisdiction in this court to consider plaintiffs' claims. This matter came before the court on an expedited basis, the court holding a hearing on this matter on May 12, 1989 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The court has devoted special attention to this important case, carefully reviewing all the case law, pleadings, briefs, and arguments.
The court initially notes that a controversial case, such as the one it must now decide, will obviously upset one party and that party's supporters. The court does not reach this decision with ease nor with any sense of satisfaction as to the result. Nonetheless, ours is a system of laws, calling upon this court to follow previous directions of the Supreme Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court hereby issues its considered judgment that plaintiffs are not entitled to a preliminary injunction on the grounds that they have not established a violation of their first amendment right to free speech or to free exercise of their religion, and in the alternative, that requiring prayer at a high school graduation ceremony would violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.
The facts pertinent to this matter are few and mostly undisputed. Plaintiff Duane Lundberg is a duly ordained minister of the Evangelical Free Church of America and is a pastor of that church in Onawa, Iowa. Plaintiff Eric Lundberg is Pastor Lundberg's son, and a senior at Onawa High School. Plaintiffs Orville Ives and Bernadette Ives are parents of another graduating senior at Onawa High School. Defendant West Monona Community School District, a duly constituted body politic pursuant to Iowa Code chapter 274.1, includes within its jurisdiction Onawa High School.2
The West Monona Community School District School Board (hereinafter "the School Board") voted late this spring to ban invocation and benediction at the 1989 graduation ceremonies at Onawa High School. The testimony at the hearing in this matter established that individual members of the School Board (possibly all of them), as well as the Superintendent, Donald Southwick, personally wanted the prayer services to continue at the graduation ceremonies. Nevertheless, after considering several letters from, among others, their insurance carriers, the Iowa Attorney General's office, the Iowa Department of Education, and several reports and a newsletter,3 the School Board became convinced that continuation of prayer at graduation ceremonies would probably violate the establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution.4
Exhibit B, for example, is the letter from the Attorney General's office to the Director of the Iowa Department of Education. This letter discusses the Graham and Steele decisions, strongly implying that failure to ban invocations and benedictions will open up the individual board members to personal liability. Exhibit A, a letter by defendant's insurance carrier, while not specifically stating that the Board members would be covered if they chose to allow prayer, also strongly implies that individual Board members would be held personally liable, and without insurance coverage, if they failed to ban invocations and benedictions.
The risk of personal liability in any suit brought under the establishment clause served as the primary motivation for School Board members to vote against inclusion of prayer.
Plaintiffs have brought suit seeking to force the School Board to reverse its decision and include prayer at the graduation ceremony to be held on May 21, 1989. At trial, Plaintiff Duane Lundberg testified that he considered prayer religious and that he instigated this suit because he wanted to be the one to invoke God's blessing on the graduation ceremony. The pastor also, after some leading questions from counsel, added that prayer had a secular purpose of lending solemnity to the ceremony, conceding, however, that there exist other, non-religious methods by which the school could invoke solemnity into the ceremonies.
The first amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
U.S. Const., amend. I.5 Most relevant to this case, of the rights the first amendment guarantees, are the prohibition against the establishment of religion, the free exercise thereof, and the right to free speech. The key to understanding this case, however, is the knowledge that this is not an establishment-clause case; the establishment clause became an issue only tangentially. Rather, plaintiffs bring their claims under the free speech and free exercise-of-religion clauses of the first amendment. Only if plaintiffs could establish a violation of their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion does the establishment-clause issue arise, for it is only then that this court would have to balance the clauses against each other.
This court finds that defendant has not violated plaintiffs' right to free speech because plaintiffs have failed to establish that a high school graduation ceremony is a public forum. This court also finds that plaintiffs have not established that defendant violated their free exercise-of-religion rights because plaintiffs failed present competent evidence sufficient to persuade this court that public prayer at the graduation ceremony constitutes a central part of their religious beliefs. Because, as mentioned, the court did not find that defendant violated either plaintiffs' free speech or free exercise-of-religion rights, the court need not address establishment-of-religion clause concerns. Nevertheless, in the event a higher court may disagree with this court's legal conclusions, this court has taken the analysis a step further to consider alternative holdings. Even if the court deemed plaintiffs' free speech and free exercise rights violated, for the sake of analysis, the court still concludes that plaintiffs are not entitled to force a now reluctant School Board to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Doe v. Santa Fe Independent School Dist.
...to voice their views.Ante at 819 (quoting Brody v. Spang, 957 F.2d 1108, 1119-20 (3d Cir.1992) (quoting Lundberg v. West Monona Community Sch. Dist., 731 F.Supp. 331 (N.D.Iowa 1989))). But the Brody court did not indicate any agreement in quoting the Iowa district court. In fact, the Brody ......
-
American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey v. Black Horse Pike Regional Bd. of Educ.
...public forum. See also Adler v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 851 F.Supp. 446, 454 (M.D.Fla.1994); but cf. Lundberg v. West Monona Community School District, 731 F.Supp. 331, 337 (N.D.Iowa 1989).5 I note its subsequent history: reh'g en banc, denied, 983 F.2d 234 (5th Cir.1992), and mot. granted, ......
-
Sands v. Morongo Unified School Dist.
...use religious means to achieve a secular purpose when nonreligious, or less religious, means will suffice. (Lundberg v. West Monona School District, supra, 731 F.Supp. at p. 342; Kay v. David Douglas Sch. Dist. No. 40, supra, 719 P.2d at p. 880; cf. Doe v. Aldine Independent School Dist. (S......
-
Fleming v. Jefferson County School Dist. R-1
...concern in avoiding a school mascot that was controversial to a segment of the school population); Lundberg v. West Monona Cmty. Sch. Dist., 731 F.Supp. 331, 338-39 (N.D.Iowa 1989) (concluding school had valid educational purpose in avoiding religious controversy by banning prayer at commen......