Justices Allow Church Club to Meet in School

The Supreme Court strengthened the free-speech rights of religious groups Monday, ruling that a Christian youth group must be permitted to hold an after-school Bible study class in a public elementary school.

Because officials in a small central New York town had allowed civic and social groups to use their school buildings, they also must open their doors to the Bible study group, the justices said in a 6-3 ruling.

The government cannot “discriminate” against the Christian youth group “because of its religious viewpoint,” Justice Clarence Thomas said for the court.

Monday’s decision could have a wide impact in communities around the nation. It gives church leaders and religious activists an open invitation to conduct meetings, including worship services, in buildings that have been opened to the public.

In the case before the court, the Rev. Stephen Fournier and his wife, Darleen, proposed to hold a weekly Bible study meeting in the school cafeteria at 3 p.m., when classes ended. The children would sing songs, pray and memorize Bible verses, they said. Their effort was part of the “Good News Clubs,” a national evangelical group focusing on children.

School officials balked, however. The superintendent described the Fourniers’ proposed meetings with children as the “equivalent of religious worship.”

Typically, school boards set policies limiting the use of their facilities. In this case, the Milford Central School had a policy that barred the use of its facilities “for religious purposes.”

Two federal courts in New York upheld the restriction as reasonable, but the justices struck it down as unconstitutional.

The Bible study group has a free-speech right to be treated like other civic groups, Thomas said. Excluding the Fourniers could reflect “a hostility” toward their religion, he added.

In dissent, Justice David H. Souter said the ruling appears to stand “for the remarkable proposition that any public school opened for civil meetings must be opened for use as a church, synagogue or mosque.”

Monday’s decision is only the latest to give religious groups a free-speech right to use public buildings or to participate on an equal basis in government-funded programs.

The court’s opinion stressing the rights of religious advocates should give a boost to President Bush’s “faith-based” initiative. His plan calls for putting more tax dollars into church-based programs and bringing more church-based programs into public institutions, such as prisons, hospitals and schools.

Critics have said this mixing of government and religion violates the Constitution. They point to the 1st Amendment’s ban on all laws “respecting an establishment of religion.” But over the last decade, the justices have increasingly looked at such issues through the prism of the 1st Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech.

The decided shift in approach is significant and its potential consequences profound. Before, the court had told school officials they could bring religion into the public schools.

Now, the court is telling these school officials they must allow in religious advocacy, at least in certain circumstances. While schoolchildren cannot be forced to hear a religious message, they have a right to hear one if they choose to do so, the justices have said.

In 1990, the court upheld the rights of high school students to meet on campus before or after classes for prayer and Bible study. In 1993, the court upheld a Christian group’s right to hold evening meetings in a high school auditorium to discuss morality and values.

Two years later, the justices extended the free-speech principle to state colleges and universities. In a case involving Christian students at the University of Virginia, they ruled that students who published a campus magazine with a Christian perspective had the same 1st Amendment right to obtain school funding as other groups.

The latest case tested whether the same free-speech principles applied in an elementary school. In the past, the court has said it was more worried about religious proselytizing of very young children than high schoolers or college students.

The Milford school board’s lawyers stressed the age of the children and said they could be unduly pressured to join a church group that met at school. Second, they said, the group’s Bible reading is closer to a worship service than an evening discussion about morals.

In his opinion in Good News Club vs. Milford Central, 99-2036, Thomas rejected both distinctions. Elementary children need not be shielded from a religious message, he said. And he dismissed as bizarre the notion that “reliance on Christian principles taints moral and character instruction.” He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.

Last year, O’Connor and Kennedy joined with the liberal bloc to reject school-sponsored and student-led prayers at a Texas high school’s football games. In that instance, the majority said that the school appeared to be promoting religion. On Monday, however, O’Connor and Kennedy agreed with Thomas that children who attend the Bible study class are acting on their own.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in a separate opinion, agreed.

Joining Souter in dissent were Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Public schools in California already are widely used by religious groups, particularly in Orange County, where many churches hold Sunday services in high school gyms and use kindergarten classrooms for Sunday school.

The California Education Code’s Civic Center Act, passed in 1996, allows for such use, said Michael Hersher, deputy counsel for the state Department of Education. The law applies to all off-hours use.

“The act basically says that all public schools have to be available for use by children’s organizations, teacher groups and senior citizens, and by any club . . . formed for recreational, political, economic, artistic or moral activities,” Hersher said.

In southern Orange County, where land is scarce and new churches booming, 60% of campuses in the Capistrano Unified School District become religious sanctuaries on Sundays. During Easter and Christmas when attendance balloons, even more campuses are rented out. Some churches drape their own banner over the school’s sign, but are required to take it down Sunday afternoon, said Dan Crawford, the district’s associate superintendent in charge of facilities.

Churches must pay for custodial and electrical costs, but school districts are forbidden from making a profit from such use.

Religious rights advocates called Monday’s ruling a landmark. Jay Sekulow, counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, said the decision “sends a powerful message that religious organizations must receive equal treatment.”

The Rutherford Institute, which represented the Fourniers, agreed the ruling will have an effect across the country. “Now, when schools open their facilities to community groups, they can no longer exclude groups they consider too religious,” said John Whitehead, the group’s founder.

The Boy Scouts may also benefit from the ruling. In the last year, some public groups have refused to open their doors to the Scouts so long as they bar openly gay men.

Last year, the justices on a 5-4 vote said the Boy Scouts have a free-speech right to exclude gays. And attorney Sekulow said Monday’s ruling appears to give the scouts a free-speech right to use school facilities on the same basis as other groups.

Lawyers for the National School Boards Assn. said they were disappointed that the court refused to allow local officials to make such decisions. “This really ties the hands of school board members. If they open the doors to some groups, they are opening the doors to religious worship in the school building,” said Julie Underwood, the general counsel.

And the leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the ruling a “terrible mistake. The court’s ruling means aggressive, fundamentalist evangelists have a new way to proselytize kids,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director. In other actions, the court:

* Upheld a long-standing immigration rule that makes it harder for children born out of wedlock overseas to obtain U.S. citizenship if their father is an American citizen but their mother is not.

The law requires that the conferral of citizenship on the child requires that the father officially acknowledge his parentage before the child’s 18th birthday. Mothers, who are of course present for the birth, need not make a similar declaration.

Legal distinctions based on gender are rarely upheld, but this one was on a 5-4 vote. “The difference between men and women in relation to the birth process is a real one,” said Justice Kennedy, and it provides a reasonable basis for the law (Nguyen vs. INS, 99-2071). Dissenting were Justices O’Connor, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer.

* In a second but unrelated case involving gender discrimination, turned away a states’ rights challenge to the federal Equal Pay Act.

Under the court’s recent federalism ruling, Illinois State University should be shielded from an equal pay lawsuit brought by some female professors.

The case would have given the conservative justices a chance to push further in the direction of states’ rights. But without comment, they rejected the appeal in Illinois State vs. Varner, 00-1277.