Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District

508 U.S. 384

Case Year: 1993

Case Ruling: 9-0, Reversed

Opinion Justice: White

FACTS

A New York state law lists ten circumstances under which public school property may be used by outside groups or used for purposes other than education. These include "social, civic, and recreational meetings, and entertainment, and other uses pertaining to the welfare of the community."

Under the law, local school boards may select from the list of ten the types of events for which they will permit use of school property. Center Moriches Union Free School District issued rules allowing only two: use by political organizations (Rule 8) and social, civic, or recreational uses (Rule 10). School board Rule 7 specifically stated "school premises shall not be used by a group for religious purposes." Rule 7 is consistent with the New York law, which does not include meetings for religious purposes on its list of ten, and with a New York court ruling, which stated that school boards could not allow student Bible clubs to meet on school property.

Lamb's Chapel, an evangelical church located in the Center Moriches community, twice asked the school board for permission to show a film series in school buildings. The series contained lectures by a psychologist on "the undermining influences of the media [which] could only be counterbalanced by returning to traditional, Christian family values instilled at an early age." Believing that the films were church-related, the school district denied both requests.

Lamb's Chapel took the school district to court, asserting that the denial violated the church's First Amendment guarantees of free speech and religious liberty. It presented evidence that district officials had permitted other religious groups to use school facilities, including a New Age religious group known as the "Mind Center," the Southern Harmonize Gospel Singers, and the Hampton Council of Churches. The school district countered that it could deny use of its property to a "radical" church "for the purpose of proselytizing," which might lead to violence. It claimed that it had a compelling interest in restricting the church's First Amendment rights: use of public school property for religious purposes would violate the Establishment Clause.

After a federal district court and a court of appeals rejected its claims, the church appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his opinion, Justice Byron White first dealt with the free speech claim. He noted that the "film ... no doubt dealt with a subject otherwise permissible under Rule 10, and its exhibition was denied solely because the film dealt with a subject from a religious standpoint." Accordingly, the board's denial violated free speech principles, which forbid the government to regulate speech "in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others."

He next took up the religious liberties issues. The excerpt of that part of the opinion appears below.

 

JUSTICE WHITE DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

... The District, as a respondent, would save its judgment below on the ground that to permit its property to be used for religious purposes would be an establishment of religion forbidden by the First Amendment. This Court suggested inWidmar v. Vincent (1981) that the interest of the State in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation "may be [a] compelling" one justifying an abridgment of free speech otherwise protected by the First Amendment; but the Court went on to hold that permitting use of University property for religious purposes under the open access policy involved there would not be incompatible with the Court's Establishment Clause cases. We have no more trouble than did the Widmar Court in disposing of the claimed defense on the ground that the posited fears of an Establishment Clause violation are unfounded. The showing of this film would not have been during school hours, would not have been sponsored by the school, and would have been open to the public, not just to church members. The District property had repeatedly been used by a wide variety of private organizations. Under these circumstances, as in Widmar, there would have been no realistic danger that the community would think that the District was endorsing religion or any particular creed, and any benefit to religion or to the Church would have been no more than incidental. As in Widmar, ... permitting District property to be used to exhibit the film involved in this case would not have been an establishment of religion under the three-part test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The challenged governmental action has a secular purpose, does not have the principal or primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and does not foster an excessive entanglement with religion.

The District also submits that it justifiably denied use of its property to a "radical" church for the purpose of proselytizing, since to do so would lead to threats of public unrest and even violence.... There is nothing in the record to support such a justification, which in any event would be difficult to defend as a reason to deny the presentation of a religious point of view about a subject the District otherwise makes open to discussion on District property....

For the reasons stated in this opinion, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

JUSTICE KENNEDY, CONCURRING IN PART AND CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

Given the issues presented as well as the apparent unanimity of our conclusion that this overt, viewpoint-based discrimination contradicts the Speech Clause of the First Amendment and that there has been no substantial showing of a potential Establishment Clause violation, I agree with JUSTICE SCALIA that the Court's citation of Lemon v. Kurtzman(1971) is unsettling and unnecessary. The same can be said of the Court's use of the phrase "endorsing religion," ... which ... cannot suffice as a rule of decision consistent with our precedents and our traditions in this part of our jurisprudence.... With these observations, I concur in part and concur in the judgment.

JUSTICE SCALIA, WITH WHOM JUSTICE THOMAS JOINS, CONCURRING IN THE JUDGMENT.

I join the Court's conclusion that the District's refusal to allow use of school facilities for petitioners' film viewing, while generally opening the schools for community activities, violates petitioners' First Amendment free-speech rights ..., to the extent it compelled the District's denial.... I also agree with the Court that allowing Lamb's Chapel to use school facilities poses "no realistic danger" of a violation of the Establishment Clause, ... but I cannot accept most of its reasoning in this regard. The Court explains that the showing of petitioners' film on school property after school hours would not cause the community to "think that the District was endorsing religion or any particular creed," and further notes that access to school property would not violate the three-part test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)....

As to the Court's invocation of the Lemon test: Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of Center Moriches Union Free School District. Its most recent burial, only last Term, was, to be sure, not fully six-feet under: our decision in Lee v. Weisman (1992) conspicuously avoided using the supposed "test" but also declined the invitation to repudiate it. Over the years, however, no fewer than five of the currently sitting Justices [Scalia, O'Connor, Rehnquist, White, and Kennedy] have, in their own opinions, personally driven pencils through the creature's heart (the author of today's opinion repeatedly), and a sixth [Thomas] has joined an opinion doing so....

The secret of the Lemon test's survival, I think, is that it is so easy to kill. It is there to scare us (and our audience) when we wish it to do so, but we can command it to return to the tomb at will.... When we wish to strike down a practice it forbids, we invoke it, see, e.g., Aguilar v. Felton (1985) (striking down state remedial education program administered in part in parochial schools); when we wish to uphold a practice it forbids, we ignore it entirely, see Marsh v. Chambers (1983) (upholding state legislative chaplains). Sometimes, we take a middle course, calling its three prongs "no more than helpful signposts,"... Such a docile and useful monster is worth keeping around, at least in a somnolent state; one never knows when one might need him.

For my part, I agree with the long list of constitutional scholars who have criticized Lemon and bemoaned the strange Establishment Clause geometry of crooked lines and wavering shapes its intermittent use has produced.... I will decline to apply Lemon--whether it validates or invalidates the government action in question--and therefore cannot join the opinion of the Court today.

I cannot join for yet another reason: the Court's statement that the proposed use of the school's facilities is constitutional because (among other things) it would not signal endorsement of religion in general. What a strange notion, that a Constitution which itself gives "religion in general" preferential treatment (I refer to the Free Exercise Clause) forbids endorsement of religion in general.... That was not the view of those who adopted our Constitution, who believed that the public virtues inculcated by religion are a public good. It suffices to point out that during the summer of 1789, when it was in the process of drafting the First Amendment, Congress enacted the famous Northwest Territory Ordinance of 1789, Article III of which provides, "Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Unsurprisingly, then, indifference to "religion in general" is not what our cases, both old and recent, demand....

For the reasons given by the Court, I agree that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment forbids what respondents have done here. As for the asserted Establishment Clause justification, I would hold, simply and clearly, that giving Lamb's Chapel nondiscriminatory access to school facilities cannot violate that provision because it does not signify state or local embrace of a particular religious sect.