ACLU victory at the Supreme Court Court overturns 11th Circuit ruling in DeKalb school case
June 26, 2000
The United States Supreme Court today vacated entirely the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in the case of Michael and Jesse Chandler vs. the DeKalb County School Board.
Last July, the Eleventh Circuit had overturned portions of federal judge Ira DeMent’s injunction against the school board’s sponsorship of prayer and other religious activities in settings where students essentially had no realistic choice about participating, such as school assemblies. In overturning the Eleventh Circuit’s decision, the Supreme Court ordered the Eleventh Circuit to follow its decision of last week in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe.
“This is a victory for Michael and Jesse Chandler and also a tremendous victory for the Constitution,” said ACLU cooperating attorney Elizabeth Hubertz, one of the Chandler family’s lawyers. “We have waited a long time for this vindication of the Constitution, and our only regret in this case is that this predictable result, consistent with 40 years of constitutional law, did not come sooner.”
The Chandlers filed suit Feb. 1, 1996, challenging the DeKalb County School Board’s reliance on Alabama’s “student-initiated prayer” statute to legitimate school-sponsored prayers in its classrooms, over its intercoms, over the public-address system at sporting events, and over the microphone at graduations.
The Chandlers also challenged myriad activities such as inviting evangelists to school assemblies, allowing Gideons to come into its classrooms to distribute New Testaments, and allowing employees to insert invitations to religious revivals into students’ report cards.
The Chandlers brought suit after school officials refused to order Jesse’s teacher to stop selecting students to pray or read Bible passages in the classroom.
Judge Ira DeMent entered an injunction prohibiting these practices but explicitly recognizing students’ rights to pray individually or in small groups, to pray and proselytize during lunch, recess, before and after school, and during other free time, to distribute religious literature, and to express their religious beliefs in artwork, homework, and other academically appropriate contexts.
The Eleventh Circuit had set aside portions of Judge DeMent’s injunction, holding that prayer over the intercom owned by the school board was “private” speech if anyone other than a school board employee delivered it.
The Supreme Court explicitly rejected that position last week, focusing on the governmental sponsorship of religion that occurs when the public schools allow their intercoms to be used for prayer before an audience that is either made to be there such as in a classroom, or is only there because the school event draws them, such as football games. The court again affirmed that religious coercion is constitutionally impermissible in the public schools, and that school officials may not permit the use of their facilities in such a way as to make religious speakers, especially those in the religious majority, feel like “insiders” at the expense of the convictions of students who do not share their beliefs.
“This ruling ought to control the Chandler case because it is about so-called ‘student-initiated’ prayer, as is our case,” said ACLU of Alabama cooperating attorney Pamela Sumners. “The Supreme Court has spoken loudly, and it has said that prayers over the intercom and audible, organized prayers in the classrooms are not just ‘private’ speech. This was 100 percent our argument to the Supreme Court, and we are gratified that our position has been adopted against the position of the DeKalb County Board and the attorney general. It will now be the duty of the Eleventh Circuit not to reinstate its previous opinion and to follow the law as the Supreme Court just foursquare announced it. The ruling is very clear.”
Since the Eleventh Circuit decision has been vacated, Judge DeMent’s injunction remains in full force and effect. It forbids school-sponsored prayer and other coercive religious practices regardless of who the speaker is, and focuses on the use of state facilities to promote religion and also on the coercive settings of classrooms and school events.
Let us also remember, said Sumners, “The Supreme Court last week reaffirmed what Judge DeMent said in his original ruling and what the ACLU of Alabama has argued from the beginning that any child is free to pray anytime he or she wishes so long as they do not create a disruption or ask for sponsorship from the school. The United States Supreme Court spoke authoritatively twice within a week’s time. Schools may not sponsor religious messages, and especially cannot do so where schoolchildren are compelled to be present. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision had failed to recognize these basic constitutional principles. The Supreme Court has now dissolved the Eleventh Circuit opinion and ordered it to reach a new decision that is consistent with our federal Constitution.”
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