290
OCTOBER TERM, 1999
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 99-62. Argued March 29, 2000—Decided June 19, 2000
Prior to 1995, a student elected as Santa Fe High School's student council chaplain delivered a prayer over the public address system before each home varsity football game. Respondents, Mormon and Catholic students or alumni and their mothers, filed a suit challenging this practice and others under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. While the suit was pending, petitioner school district (District) adopted a different policy, which authorizes two student elections, the first to determine whether "invocations" should be delivered at games, and the second to select the spokesperson to deliver them. After the students held elections authorizing such prayers and selecting a spokesperson, the District Court entered an order modifying the policy to permit only nonsectarian, nonproselytizing prayer. The Fifth Circuit held that, even as modified by the District Court, the football prayer policy was invalid.
Held: The District's policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games violates the Establishment Clause. Pp. 301-317.
(a) The Court's analysis is guided by the principles endorsed in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577. There, in concluding that a prayer delivered by a rabbi at a graduation ceremony violated the Establishment Clause, the Court held that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way that establishes a state religion or religious faith, or tends to do so, id., at 587. The District argues unpersuasively that these principles are inapplicable because the policy's messages are private student speech, not public speech. The delivery of a message such as the invocation here—on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer—is not properly characterized as "private" speech. Although the District relies heavily on this Court's cases addressing public forums, e. g., Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, it is clear that the District's
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