I just recently found this :
The case was submitted on stipulated facts. The District Court held that petitioners’ practice of including invocations and benedictions in public school graduations violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and it enjoined petitioners from continuing the practice. 728 F. Supp. 68 (RI 1990). The court applied the three part Establishment Clause test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Under that test as described in our past cases, to satisfy the Establishment Clause a governmental practice must (1) reflect a clearly secular purpose; (2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) avoid excessive government entanglement with religion. Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 773 (1973). The District Court held that petitioners’ actions violated the second part of the test, and so did not address either the first or the third. The court decided, based on its reading of our precedents, that the effects test of Lemon is violated whenever government action “creates an identification of the state with a religion, or with religion in general,” 728 F. Supp., at 71, or when “the effect of the governmental actionis to endorse one religion over another, or to endorse religion in general.” Id., at 72. The court determined that the practice of including invocations and benedictions, even so called nonsectarian ones, in public school graduations creates an identification of governmental power with religious practice, endorses religion, and violates the Establishment Clause. In so holding the court expressed the determination not to follow Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools, 822 F.2d 1406 (1987), in which the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, relying on our decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), held that benedictions and invocations at public school graduations are not always unconstitutional. In Marsh we upheld the constitutionality of the Nebraska State Legislature’s practice of opening each of its sessions with a prayer offered by a chaplain paid out of public funds. The District Court in this case disagreed with the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning because it believed that Marsh was a narrow decision, “limited to the unique situation of legislative prayer,” and did not have any relevance to school prayer cases. 728 F. Supp., at 74.
Does that mean what I think it means? For those of you who remember my case, does it apply?
Cessandra
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
Oh, sorry, not enough explanation. It was from Lee v. Weisman (90-1014), 505 U.S. 577 (1992), and the Supreme Court upheld the decision made by the Court of Appeals. Does this apply to my case, where I was fighting a student-led graduation prayer?
Cessandra
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
Jodi
February 3, 2000, 2:44am
3
I don’t know what you think it means but, no, it doesn’t apply. Weisman is a 1992 case that I know was referred to in the Thread From Hell when this issue came up the first time.
The distinction is that in Weisman the prayers were initiated and in fact mandated by the school, not by the students. That’s why the Court said:
A school official, the principal, decided that an invocation and a benediction should be given; this is a choice attributable to the State, and from a constitutional perspective it is as if a state statute decreed that the prayers must occur. The principal chose the religious participant, here a rabbi, and that choice is also attributable to the State.
In your case, the prayer was arguably instigated by the students. You may want to argue again that it wasn’t really instigated by the students, but that’s the distinction that is at the root of why Weisman didn’t apply in your case.
Jodi
Fiat Justitia
Ok, thanks. I guess I didn’t read it right.
Cessandra
I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
For what it is worth, the USSC has yet to revisit Lee v. Weisman . But my foggy brain has some memory of a school prayer issue being granted review this term by the USSC.
I didn’t read your prior thread, so I can’t say what help Lee might be.