Case Argument: Lee v. Weisman 505 US 577 (1992)

In keeping with the practice of several other public middle and high school principals in Providence, Rhode Island, Robert E. Lee, a middle school principal, invited a rabbi to speak at his school's graduation ceremony. Daniel Weisman's daughter, Deborah, was among the graduates. Hoping to stop the rabbi from speaking at his daughter's graduation, Weisman sought a temporary restaining order in District Court - but was denied. After the ceremony, where prayers were recited, Weisman filed for a permanent injunction barring Lee and other Providence public school officials from inviting clergy to deliver invocations and benedictions at their schools' ceremonies. When the Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court ruling against the schools, Lee appealed to the Supreme Court and was granted certiorari.

The District Court restrained Lee and company from continuing the practice at future graduations because this violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Petitioners Lee and company then elevated the case to the Court of Appeals. The appellate court affirmed the District Court. Likewise, the US Supreme Court upheld that “Including clergy who offer prayers as part of an official public school graduation ceremony is forbidden by the Establishment Clause.”

Salient Points of the Case

The Supreme Court affirmed five points:

1. The basic limitations of the Establishment Clause carries more weight than the principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion.
2. The attempt to make prayers acceptable to most persons in a public school also involves the government and “government may not establish an official or civic religion…” as the Establishment Clause provides.
3. “The State may no more use social pressure to enforce orthodoxy than it may use direct means…What might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce.” Prayers in elementary and secondary schools are particularly risky since the youth are often susceptible to peer-pressure and conformity to social conventions.
4. The real issue is that a student will have to choose between missing a graduation ceremony or conforming to a state-sponsored religious practice “in an environment where the risk of compulsion is especially high.”
5. Prayers at a state legislature's opening, involves adults who are free to enter and leave with little comment while a graduation ceremony is more constraining since it involves the most important event that a student needs to attend.

Supporting Laws

The following statute and jurisprudences support the case:

1. The Establishment Clause which “guarantees, at a minimum, that a government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which ‘establishes a state religion or religious faith, or tends to do so.’”
2. The three-part Establishment Clause test in Lemon v. Kutzman 403 U.S. 602 (1971) which states that a “governmental practice must  reflect a clearly secular purpose; have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and avoid excessive government entanglement with religion.”
3. “The principles governing the extent of permitted accommodation by the State for the religious beliefs and practices of its many citizens” as embodied in County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter.