Case Information
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA JOHN ROE CIVIL ACTION VERSUS NO: 07-2908 TANGIPAHOA PARISH SCHOOL SECTION: J(5) BOARD, ET AL
ORDER AND REASONS
The question before the Court is whether the distribution of Gideon Bibles to elementary school children at Loranger Middle School violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically, the Establishment Clause.
Before the Court are cross-motions for summаry judgment filed by Plaintiff [1] and Defendants [2] (Rec. Docs. 33 and 34). These motions, which are opposed, were set for hearing on the briefs. Upon review of the record, the memoranda of counsel, and the applicable law, this Court now finds, for the reasons set forth below, that Plaintiff’s motion should be granted and Defendants’ motion denied.
Background Facts
On May 9, 2007, the Gideons visited Loranger Middle School, a public school in Tangipahoa Parish, to distribute Bibles to the fifth grade class. Via email, Principal Andre Pellerin notified fifth-grade teachers that the Gideons wоuld be on campus all day distributing Bibles at a location outside of the principal’s office and that those students who wanted a Bible could have one. Pellerin also stated in the email to “[p]lease stress to students that they DO NOT have to get a [B]ible” (emphаsis in original). In sending the email, Pellerin has testified that he was acting pursuant to instructions from the Tangipahoa Parish School Board (“School Board”).
When time came for “Jane Roe’s” class to get their Bibles, the students were instructed by their teacher that if they did not want a Bible, they should remain with the sixth-grade class. Jane alleges that she felt pressured to get a Bible because of potential teasing and name-calling by her peers if she refused. As a result, she accepted a Bible, and she, like everyone еlse receiving a Bible that day, was told by the person from the Gideons, “God bless.”
Jane’s father, “John Roe,” instituted this action after learning that his daughter had been given a Bible while at school.
Discussion
A. Applicable Law
Summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). The moving party bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). If that burden has been met, the non- moving party must then come forward and establish the specific material facts in dispute to survive summary judgment.
Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp.,
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states
that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The
religion clauses of the First Amendment are made applicable to
the States and their school districts by the Fourteenth
Amendment. See Everson v. Bd. of Educ.,
The United States Supreme Court has undertaken the analysis
of a First Amendment violation with regard to religious material
in schools several times. The starting point in the analysis is
Lemon v. Kurtzman,
In Lee v. Weisman, the Supreme Court set forth the “coercion” test, emphasizing that, “at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercises.” 505 U.S. 577, 587 (1992) (finding formal prayer at a graduation ceremony to be an obligatory participation in a religious exercise and a violation of the Establishment Clause). The coercion test considers whether the state actor has coerced anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a wаy which establishes religion. Id. at 587.
The final test is the “endorsement” test, articulated by the
Supreme Court in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties
Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter,
B. The Parties’ Arguments
Plaintiff argues that the distribution of Bibles at Loranger Middle School violates all three of the applicable constitutional tests set forth in Lee, Lemon, and County of Allegheny.
In opposition, the School Board argues that the distribution of Bibles in schools has been held unconstitutional only in cases where the defendants allowed the children to be subjected to an element of coercion, i.e., where children have been forced to еither listen to a religious presentation and/or coerced into taking a Bible. Since there is no element of coercion in the facts of the case at hand, Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s constitutional challenge must fail.
C. Analysis
1. Coercion Test
This test focuses on the сoercive effect that the activity
in question has on students. The courts have expressed a great
deal of concern for “the impressionability of students in
elementary [schools] . . . and the pressure they feel from
teachers, administrators, and peers.” Jabr v. Rapides Parish
Sch. Bd.,
Jane Roe states that she accepted the Bible because if she did not, her classmates would have “picked on” her. She feared they would call her “devil worshipper,” and that “she don’t [sic] believe in God,” and that she is а “Goth.” Plaintiff goes on to cite several cases in support of the argument that Jane Roe was unconstitutionally coerced into taking a Bible.
In Berger v. Rensselaer Central School Corp.,
In Jabr, supra, students were lined up single file outside
the principal’s office, escorted inside, and each child was
presented with a copy of a Bible.
In Peck v. Upshur County Bd. of Educ., school administrators set up a table on school property but outside of the formal classroom setting оne day a year, where they placed religious and nonreligious material, and then permitted students simply to walk past the table, and view the offerings without school officials or anyone offering the religious materials present. [3] 155 F.3d 274, 287 (4th Cir. 1988). The table containеd a disclaimer, which renounced any school endorsement. The Peck court held that “the state does not violate the Establishment Clause when it permits entities to passively offer the Bible or other religious material to secondary school students оn a single day during the year pursuant to a policy of allowing private religious and nonreligious speeches in its public schools. [4] Id. at 288. However, the Peck holding applied to secondary school students. The court specifically stated that as to elementary school students, the practice would be unconstitutional because of the heightened concerns regarding coercion. The court noted that:
In elementary schools, the concerns animating the coercion principle are at their strongest because of the impressionability of young elementary-age children. Moreover, because children of these ages may be unable to fully recognize and appreciate the difference between government and private speech . . . the [School Board’s] policy could more easily be (mis)perceived as endorsement rather than as neutrality.
Peck,
As a result, the Court concludes that the practice
undertaken by Loranger Middle School did violatе the
Establishment Clause. Jane Roe was, in fact, subjected to an
the hall or library-presumably without even calling any
attention to that choice. Thus, no student will be put
to the choice of “participating [in a religious
exercise], with all that implies, or protesting.” Lee
v. Weisman,
unconstitutional element of coercion as she, an impressionable young elementary-age child, experienced pressure to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which establishes religion.
2. Lemon Test
The same result follows under the Lemon test. As to the
first prong
,
the Gideons were given access to the elementary
school during school hours to distribute Bibles to fifth grade
students. The School Board has failed to set forth a secular
purpose for this practice, and in that absence, this Court
determines that the distribution of Gideon Bibles is
“unquestionably religious.” See Berger,
3. Endorsement Test
The endorsement test also results in a finding of unconstitutionality for the reasons set forth above. The distribution of the Gideon Bibles was supported by the School Board, upon whose instruction the principal sent an email to the school’s teachеrs to let the children know about the availability of the Bibles outside of the principal’s office. Despite the principal’s statement that the children did not have to take a Bible, by allowing the Gideons to set up immediately outside the principal’s office, the School Board “created the impression in young, impressionable minds that ‘the school endorsed a particular belief: Christianity.’” See Jabr, at 664.
Therefore, this Court determines that the distribution of Bibles was ultimately coercive as Jane was pressurеd to accept a Bible in violation of Lee ; that distribution of Bibles is a religious activity without a secular purpose in violation of Lemon; and that the distribution by the Gideons amounted to promotion of Christianity by the School Board in violation of County of Allegheny. As a result, the distribution of Gideon Bibles to elementary school children at Loranger Middle School violated the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, specifically, the Establishment Clause. Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Rec. Doc. 40) is hereby GRANTED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Rec. Doc. 34) is hereby DENIED.
New Orleans, Louisiana, this 22nd day of April, 2008. _____________________________ CARL J. BARBIER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Notes
[1] Plaintiff “John Roe” has filed this suit individually аnd as next friend to his daughter “Jane Roe.”
[2] Defendants are the Tangipahoa Parish School Board, Ann Smith, Robert Potts, Leonard Genco, Al Link, Danny Ridgel, Robert Caves, Eric Dangerfield, Sandra Bailey-Simmons and Rose Dominguez, board members, Louis Joseph, superintendent at the time of the events in question, Tangipahoa Parish School System, and Andre Pellerin, principal of Loranger Middle School. Defendants are sued in both their individual and official capacities.
[3] In this way, the instant case contains circumstances somewhere between Berger / Jabr and Peck in the sense that in Peck, the tables were not in a classroom or principal’s office area as in the instant case, but they were unmanned, which was not the case here.
[4] The court stated further: The Board’s аction does not raise the specter of official coercion because neither the Board nor any other school employee will require or even encourage any student to pick up a Bible, much less to read one, and thе Board has also expressly forbidden the private sponsors of the tables from imposing upon any student to take a Bible. The Bibles are made available outside of the formal classroom setting and students will be able to ignore or simply walk past the table set up in