580
Opinion of the Court
Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.
School principals in the public school system of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, are permitted to invite members of the clergy to offer invocation and benediction prayers as part of the formal graduation ceremonies for middle schools and for high schools. The question before us is whether including clerical members who offer prayers as part of the official school graduation ceremony is consistent with the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, provisions the Fourteenth Amendment makes applicable with full force to the States and their school districts.
D. Maines; for Concerned Women for America et al. by James Matthew Henderson, Sr., Jordan Lorence, Mark N. Troobnick, and Thomas Patrick Monaghan; for Focus on the Family et al. by Stephen H. Galebach and Laura D. Millman; for the Liberty Counsel by Mathew D. Staver; for the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs by Nathan Lewin and Dennis Rapps; for the National Legal Foundation by Robert K. Skolrood and Brian M. McCormick; for the Rutherford Institute et al. by John W. Whitehead, Alexis I. Crow, A. Eric Johnston, Stephen E. Hurst, Joseph Secola, Thomas S. Neuberger, J. Brian Heller, Amy Dougherty, David Melton, Thomas W. Strahan, Robert R. Melnick, William Bonner, Larry Crain, W. Charles Bundren, and James Knicely; for Specialty Research Associates, Inc., et al. by Jordan Lorence; for the Southern Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission by Michael K. Whitehead and James M. Smart, Jr.; and for the United States Catholic Conference by Mark E. Chopko and Phillip H. Harris.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Americans for Religious Liberty by Ronald A. Lindsay; and for the American Jewish Congress et al. by Douglas Laycock.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the State of Delaware by Charles M. Oberly III, Attorney General of Delaware, Michael F. Foster, Solicitor General, David S. Swayze, and David B. Ripsom; for the Council on Religious Freedom et al. by Lee Boothby, Robert W. Nixon, Walter E. Carson, and Rolland Truman; for the Institute in Basic Life Principles by Joe Reynolds; for the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty et al. by David B. Isbell and T. Jeremy Gunn; and for the National School Boards Association by Gwendolyn H. Gregory, August W. Steinhilber, and Thomas A. Shannon.
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