Download SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT V. ROE Argued

SANTA FE INDEPENDENT
SCHOOL DISTRICT V. DOE
Argued: March 29, 2000 – Decided June 19, 2000
By
Neil Fastres
Background:
A student elected as Santa Fe High
School's student council chaplain delivered
a prayer over the public address system
before each home varsity football game.
 Respondents, Mormon and Catholic
students and their mothers, filed a suit
challenging this practice and others under
the Establishment Clause of the First
Amendment.

Petitioner school district adopted a policy, which
authorizes two student elections, the first to
determine whether “invocations” should be
delivered at games, and the second to select the
spokesperson to deliver them.
 the District Court entered an order modifying the
policy to permit only nonsectarian prayer.
 The District said that it was not a violation of the
First Amendment because the policy’s messages
are private student speech, not public speech.

CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES:
Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe dealt with
the FIRST AMENDMENT: Freedom of Religion, Speech,
Press, and Assembly (1971)
 The First Amendment protects the civil liberties of
individuals in the United States.
 The Constitution guarantees that government may not
force anybody to support or participate in religion or its
activities.
 Question: Does the Santa Fe Independent School
District's policy permitting student-led, student-initiated
prayer at football games violate the Establishment
Clause of the First Amendment?

COURT RULING:

The case was decided 6 to 3. Justice John Paul Stevens
delivered the majority opinion of the Court:
 The Court held that the District's policy permitting
student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games
violates the Establishment Clause. The Court concluded
that the football game prayers were public speech
authorized by a government policy and taking place on
government property at government-sponsored schoolrelated events. Such speech is not properly characterized
as "private," wrote Justice Stevens for the majority.
OPINIONS:
DISSENTING OPINIONS: Chief Justice William
H. Rehnquist, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia
and Clarence Thomas, agreed with the District’s
opinion, which was that it was not a violation of
the First Amendment because it was considered
as a private speech.
 CONCURRING OPINIONS: Justice John Paul
Stevens, followed by Justices Sandra Day
O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer
thought that this kind of speech was public and
could be an offense for some people.

RAMIFICATIONS:
It violated the First Amendment that talks about
the freedom of Religion.
 What it did for the U.S. is that now people will
pay more attention of what they are going to
say when they are in public areas, such as a
football stadium for example. Maybe, it helped
some to realize that what they think and believe
is not especially what everybody else believes in.

CASES RELATED TO IT:

Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577. There, in concluding that a prayer delivered
by a rabbi at a graduation ceremony violated the Establishment Clause, the
Court held that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that
government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or
its execices, or otherwise act in a way that establishes a state religion or
religious faith, or tends to do so.

Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 270, the schoolsponsored newspaper of Hazelwood East High School, was written and
edited by students. The school principal, Reynolds found two of the articles
in the issue to be inappropriate, and ordered that the pages on which the
articles appeared be withheld from publication. Did the principal's deletion
of the articles violate the students' rights under the First Amendment? The
Court held that the First Amendment did not require schools to affirmatively
promote particular types of student speech. The Court held that schools
must be able to set high standards for student speech disseminated under
their auspices, and that schools retained the right to refuse to sponsor
speech that was "inconsistent with 'the shared values of a civilized social
order.
PERSONAL OPINION:

I agree with the Court’s decision because I
think that to recite prayer in a public area
is a violation to the First Amendment. I
think that everybody has the right to have
his own believes and nobody should force
one to practice other religions than his
own.