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Supreme Court Bans Prayer at High School Football Games

June 20, 2000

In a crushing defeat for freedom of religion, the Supreme Court barred officials from letting high school students lead stadium crowds in prayer before football games. The court's sweeping language in a Texas case could extend far beyond school sports events -- eventually affecting graduation ceremonies and more. The ruling claimed that a school district's policy of allowing such student-led prayers violated the constitutionally required separation of government and religion.

Advocates of religious freedom greeted the ruling with dismay. "The government's 'benign neutrality' toward religion in this country is now nothing short of malevolent hostility," said Jan LaRue of the Family Research Council.

"I was very disappointed," said Dr. Cole Pugh, superintendent of Texas' Columbia-Brazoria school district. "I think our country was founded on Christian principles and we are moving further away from it all the time and I think that is why we are in a moral free fall today. I think they should allow prayer in school."

"I think the federal government has no right to make this kind of decision. The local government should reflect their local community," said Renard Thomas, president of the Angleton TX school board. "Here in Brazoria County we have a strong Christian based community. If it has local support, then I would be in favor of it."

Football coaches were also disappointed to hear the news of the court's ruling. "I'm disappointed personally. I think if people get together and want to do that thing and everyone is in agreement it should be there right," said Dean De Atley, Columbia High School football coach. "I think a little bit of reflection is good. It is more important than what any one individual team is doing on a given night."

"As a coach, I think prayer is one aspect that brings a team together," said Mark Wright, football coach at Angleton High School. "For that one moment it brings the vast majority of people at the sporting event together and I think it's sad that you would take that away."

Texas church leaders were also disappointed about the ruling. "I think its kind of sad that we can't start events with a prayer whether it be in football games or other activities," said Thomas Lemon, pastor of the Third St. Church of Christ in Sweeny. "I think it's important that we have a spiritual foundation. We can't pray too much."

When the Texas case was argued in March, an ABC News poll said two-thirds of Americans thought students should be permitted to lead such prayers. And in Texas' Republican primary election that same month, 94 percent of voters approved a nonbinding resolution backing student-initiated prayer at sporting events.

Texas governor George Bush, Jr., who had filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold student-led prayer, said he was disappointed. "I support the constitutionally guaranteed right of all students to express their faith freely and participate in voluntary student-led prayer," said the Republican presidential candidate. However, Vice President Al Gore, Jr., the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, supported the court decision.

Gary Bauer, a former candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, noted that Republican presidents appointed four of the court's six-justice majority. "This underscores that my party has got to be more serious about the men and women we put on the high bench," said Bauer, who leads the Campaign for Working Families.

Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, a group of religious leaders from many denominations, criticized the decision on the courthouse steps shortly after it was announced. "The U.S. Supreme Court's decision [denies] students the privilege of calling upon God to watch over them, a privilege the justices enjoy each time they sit to hear cases. We will pray and work for the day when students and parents have their religious liberties restored," Schenck said.

The justices openly acknowledge religious tradition in a courtroom that features a frieze of "law givers," including Moses, and is studded with representations of tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. The court marshal always concludes his call to order with the words, "God save the United States and this honorable court," and lawyers admitted to the Supreme Court Bar swear an oath in open court that ends, "So help you God." However, they have consistently voted to deny religious freedom in schools.

Voting in favor of the judicial fiat banning prayer were justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer. Dissenting were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Writing for the three, Rehnquist said he found the tone of the court's opinion more disturbing than its substance. "It bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life," he said. His dissent accused the majority of distorting legal precedents and "venturing into the world of prophecy" by deciding that harm was inevitable.

Stevens' majority opinion relied heavily on the court's last major ruling on school prayer, when in 1992 the justices banned prayers -- invocations and benedictions -- at school graduation ceremonies.

In the Texas case, four high school students and their parents sued the Santa Fe Independent School District in Galveston County in 1995 over its policy of letting students elect a chaplain to lead prayers at graduation ceremonies and football games. Two families -- one Catholic and one Mormon -- challenged the policy.

The court based its decision on the Constitution's first amendment, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." In the Texas case, the prayers were not mandated by either Congress or the state legislature, but were a student initiative in the high school. However, the Supreme Court has often circumvented democracy by imposing its own opinions on the people through contrived arguments that bear little resemblance to constitutional truth. In this case, the ruling restrains the very freedom that the founding fathers meant to protect.

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