300
Opinion of the Court
graduations and that school-encouraged prayer was constitutionally impermissible at school-related sporting events. Thus, in Doe v. Duncanville Independent School Dist., 70 F. 3d 402 (1995), it had described a high school graduation as "a significant, once in-a-lifetime event" to be contrasted with athletic events in "a setting that is far less solemn and extraordinary." Id., at 406-407.9
In its opinion in this case, the Court of Appeals explained:
"The controlling feature here is the same as in Duncanville: The prayers are to be delivered at football games—hardly the sober type of annual event that can be appropriately solemnized with prayer. The distinction to which [the District] points is simply one without difference. Regardless of whether the prayers are selected by vote or spontaneously initiated at these frequently-recurring, informal, school-sponsored events, school officials are present and have the authority to stop the prayers. Thus, as we indicated in Duncan-ville, our decision in Clear Creek II hinged on the singular context and singularly serious nature of a graduation ceremony. Outside that nurturing context, a Clear Creek Prayer Policy cannot survive. We therefore reverse the district court's holding that [the District's] alternative Clear Creek Prayer Policy can be extended to football games, irrespective of the presence of the nonsectarian, nonproselytizing restrictions." 168 F. 3d, at 823.
The dissenting judge rejected the majority's distinction between graduation ceremonies and football games. In his
9 Because the dissent overlooks this case, it incorrectly assumes that a "prayer-only policy" at football games was permissible in the Fifth Circuit. See post, at 323 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.).
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