Important Court Decisions on Prayer in Public Schools

Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., 533 U.S. 98 (2001)

A school district violates the free-speech clause of the First Amendment by expressly prohibiting religious groups from using school facilities when it allows all other social, civic, and recreational groups to use the same facilities.

Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. V. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000)

A school district policy that allows and encourages student-initiated prayer, at high school football games, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body violates the Establishment Clause.

Comm. For Voluntary Prayer v. Wimberly, 704 A.2d 119 (D.C. Cir. 1997)

A school's proposed prayer initiative had a clear purpose of fostering prayer in public school and ran contrary to the fundamental principal of neutrality required by the Establishment Clause.

ACLU v. Black Horse Pike Reg’l Bd. of Educ., 84 F.3d 1471 (3d Cir. 1995)

A school board policy that allows the graduating class to vote whether to have a graduation prayer and pick the speaker is not geared towards protecting free speech rights and violates the Establishment Clause, despite a disclaimer rejecting any school association.

Ingebretsen v. Jackson Public Sch. Dist., 88 F.3d 274 (5th Cir. 1996)

A school can allow students to choose to celebrate graduation ceremonies with student-initiated, non-proselytizing, and nonsectarian prayer given by students.

Settle v. Dickson County Sch. Bd., 53 F.3d 152 (6th Cir. 1995)

A teacher has broad discretion to give grades and conduct class discussion based on the content of speech.

Lassonde v. Pleasanton Unified Sch. Dist., 2003 WL 355911 (9th Cir. 2003)

Where a school endorses and sponsors speakers for the graduation ceremony, it must restrict proselytizing speech in order to avoid an Establishment Clause violation.  The Supreme Court’s ruling in Good News Club v. Milford Cent. Sch., which dealt with a nonschool-sponsored, after-school club, does not govern in a case like this.

Cole v. Oroville Union High Sch. Dist., 228 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir. 2000)

A school with “plenary control of graduation” must restrict the graduation speech and invocation given by students in order to avoid the appearance of government sponsorship of religion.

Fleming v. Jefferson County Sch. Dist., 298 F. 3d 918 (10th Cir. 2002)

A school may regulate the appearance of hallway tiles, including by restricting religious content, to guard against the misperception of school-sponsored religion and to maintain the building’s positive learning environment.

Adler v. Duval County Sch. Bd., 250 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. 2001)

A school policy that allows a graduating high school class to elect a student to deliver a graduation speech does not violate the Establishment Clause, as long as the school exercises no control whatsoever over the election or the content of the speech.

Chandler v. Siegelman, 180 F.3d 1254 (11th Cir. 2000) vacated and remanded by 530 U.S. 1256 (2000) and reinstated by 230 F.3d 1313 (11th Cir.2000)

A school may not prohibit genuinely neutral student-initiated religious speech, nor apply restrictions on the time, place, and manner of that speech that exceed those placed on student’s secular speech, as long as the religious speech does not “bear the imprint of the state. ”

DeNooyer v. Livonia Public Sch., 799 F. Supp 744 (E.D. Mich. 1992)

A school may prevent a proselytizing oral presentation by an elementary student in order to safeguard legitimate pedagogical interests.

Gearon v. Loudon County Sch. Bd., 844 F. Supp. 1097 (E.D. Va. 1993)

A school inherently violates the Establishment Clause at a high school graduation setting when a prayer is offered, regardless of who makes the decision that the prayer will be given and who authorizes the actual wording of the remarks.

Deveney v. Bd. of Educ. of the County of Kanawha, 231 F. Supp. 2d 483 (S.D. W. Va. 2002)

The Establishment Clause precludes the giving of an invocation at a graduation ceremony where the school retains control of the content and has a history of allowing religious based speech.