Education

Chief Justice’s Dissent

June 12, 1985 6 min read
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Some who trouble to read the opinions in this case will find it ironic--perhaps even bizarre--that on the very day we heard arguments in this case, the Court’s session opened with an invocation for Divine protection. Across the park a few hundred yards away, the House of Representatives and the Senate regularly open each session with a prayer. These legislative prayers are not just one minute in duration, but are extended, thoughtful invocations and prayers for Divine guidance. They are given, as they have been since 1789, by clergy appointed as official chaplains and paid from the treasury of the United States. Congress has also provided chapels in the Capitol, at public expense, where members and others may pause for prayer, meditation--or a moment of silence.

Inevitably some wag is bound to say that the Court’s holding today reflects a belief that the historic practice of the Congress and this Court is justified because members of the judiciary and Congress are more in need of Divine guidance than are schoolchildren. Still others will say that all this controversy is “much ado about nothing,” since no power on earth--including this Court and Congress--can stop any teacher from opening the school daywith a moment of silence for pupils to meditate, to plan their day--or to pray if they voluntarily elect to do so.

I make several points about today’s curious holding.

(a) It makes no sense to say that Alabama has “endorsed prayer” by merely enacting a new statute “to specify expressly that voluntary prayer is one of the authorized activities during a moment of silence.” [

  • ] To suggest that a moment-of-silence statute that includes the word “prayer” unconstitutionally endorses religion, while one that simply provides for a moment of silence does not, manifests not neutrality but hostility toward religion. For decades our opinions have stated that hostility toward any religion or toward all religions is as much forbidden by the Constitution as is an official establishment of religion. The Alabama legislature has no more “endorsed” religion than a state or the Congress does when it provides for legislative chaplains, or than this Court does when it opens each session with an invocation to God. ...

(b) The inexplicable aspect of the foregoing opinions, however, is what they advance as support for the holding concerning the purpose of the Alabama legislature. Rather than determining legislative purposehe face of the statute as a whole,[

  • ] the opinions rely on three factors in concluding that the Alabama legislature had a “wholly religious” purpose for enacting the statute under review, Ala. Code 16-1-20.1(Supp. 1984): (i) statements of the statute’s sponsor, (ii) admissions in Governor James’ answer to the Second Amended Complaint, and (iii) the difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute.

Curiously, the opinions do not mention that all of the sponsor’s statements relied upon--including the statement “inserted” into the Senate Journal--were made after the legislature had passed the statute; indeed, the testimony that the Court finds critical was given well over a year after the statute was enacted. As even the appellees concede, there is not a shred of evidence that the legislature as a whole shared the sponsor’s motive or that a majority in either house was even aware of the sponsor’s view of the bill when it was passed. The sole relevance of the sponsor’s statements, therefore, is that they reflect the personal, subjective motives of a single legislator. No case in the 195-year history of this Court supports the disconcerting idea that post-enactment statements by individual legislators are relevant in determining the constitutionality of legislation. ...

The several preceding opinions conclude that the principal difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute proves that the sole purpose behind the inclusion of the phrase “or voluntary prayer” in 16-1-20.1 was to endorse and promote prayer. This reasoning is simply a subtle way of focusing exclusively on the religious component of the statute rather than examining the statute as a whole. Such logic--if it can be called that--would lead the Court to hold, for example, that a state may enact a statute that provides reimbursement for bus transportation to the parents of all schoolchildren, but may not add parents of parochial school students to an existing program providing reimbursement for parents of public-school students. Congress amended the statutory Pledge of Allegiance 31 years ago to add the words “under God.’' [

  • ] Do the several opinions in support of the judgment today render the Pledge unconstitutional? That would be the consequence of their method of focusing on the difference between 16-1-20.1 and its predecessor statute rather than on examining 16-1-20.1 as a whole.[
  • ] Any such holding would of course make a mockery of our decisionmaking in Establishment Clause cases. And even were the Court’s method correct, the inclusion of the words “or voluntary prayer” in 16-1-20.1 is wholly consistent with the clearly permissible purpose of clarifying that silent, voluntary prayer is not forbidden in the public-school building.[]

(c) The Court’s extended treatment of the “test” of Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), suggests a naive preoccupation with an easy, bright-line approach for addressing constitutional issues. We have repeatedly cautioned that Lemon did not establish a rigid caliper capable of resolving every Establishment Clause issue, but that it sought only to provide “signposts.” “In each [Establishment Clause] case, the inquiry calls for line drawing; no fixed, per se rule can be framed.’' [

  • ] In any event, our responsibility is not to apply tidy formulas by rote; our duty is to determine whether the statute or practice at issue is a step toward establishing a state religion. Given today’s decision, however, perhaps it is understandable that the opinions in support of the judgment all but ignore the Establishment Clause itself and the concerns that underlie it.

(d) The notion that the Alabama statute is a step toward creating an established church borders on, if it does not trespass into, the ridiculous. The statute does not remotely threaten religious liberty; it affirmatively furthers the values of religious freedom and tolerance that the Establishment Clause was designed to protect. Without pressuring those who do not wish to pray, the statute simply creates an opportunity to think, to plan, or to pray if one wishes--as Congress does by providing chaplains and chapels. It accommodates the purely private, voluntary religious choices of the individual pupils who wish to pray while at the same time creating a time for nonreligious reflection for those who do not choose to pray. The statute also provides for a meaningful opportunity for schoolchildren to appreciate the absolute constitutional right of each individual to worship and believe as the individual wishes. The statute “endorses” only the view that the religious observances of others should be tolerated and, where possible, accommodated. If the government may not accommodate religious needs when it does so in a wholly neutral and noncoercive manner, the “benevolent neutrality” that we have long considered the correct constitutional standard will quickly translate into the “callous indifference” that the Court has consistently held the Establishment Clause does not require.

The Court today has ignored the wise admonition of Justice Goldberg that “the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow.” [

  • ] The innocuous statute that the Court strikes down does not even rise to the level of “mere shadow.” Justice O’Connor paradoxically acknowledges, “It is difficult to discern a serious threat to religious liberty from a room of silent, thoughtful schoolchildren.” [
  • ][
  • ] I would add to that, “even if they choose to pray.”

The mountains have labored and brought forth a mouse.[

  • ]

The several opinions suggest that other similar statutes may survive today’s decision. If this is true, these opinions become even less comprehensible, given that the Court holds this statute invalid when there is no legitimate evidence of “impermissible” purpose; there could hardly be less evidence of “impermissible” purpose than was shown in this case.

A version of this article appeared in the June 12, 1985 edition of Education Week as Chief Justice’s Dissent

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