Religion & American Law

An Invitation to Restrict Religion

A fifth-grader in Pennsylvania attempting to invite fellow students to a church Christmas party was prevented from doing so by school officials. While students are allowed to hand out invitations to birthday parties or other private activities, the school superintendant restricted this type of invitation. The superintendant claimed that the invitation was solicitation from a third-party as opposed to personal speech by the student. The student's father challenged this restriction and was victorious in the district court.

There are multiple issues which must be considered in this case. The religious free exercise rights as well as free speech rights of the student are at stake and there is the potential for an Establishment Clause violation by the school. From the student's perspective, she was acting within her free speech as well as free exercise rights to invite classmates to the church party. The superintendant disagreed, feeling that the invitations represented the views of a third party, the church, and that the student's right to free speech was therefore not restricted. Another issue which was not directly discussed by the superintendant but is certainly germane is the potential establishment issue. The superintendant may have felt that granting permission to hand out the invitations would constitute school endorsement of the religious party thereby violating the Establishment Clause.

An important precedent to consider regarding the constitutional rights of students in public schools is Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). In this case, students protested the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to school. School officials were concerned that the armbands would cause a disturbance in the school and suspended the students when they came to school wearing them. The Supreme Court ruled that the armbands constituted speech deserving of First Amendment protection unless the school could prove that the speech posed a threat to school discipline.

The Tinker precedent suggests that the distribution of invitations to a church Christmas party would classify as constitutionally protected free speech. Since the superintendant did not make a claim that the invitations caused a disturbance, the Tinker precedent leads one to believe that such speech should not be restricted. Additionally, the fact that the student is distributing invitations as opposed to verbally inviting classmates to the party does not limit her Constitutional protections. The printed invitations convey the exact same message as this verbal discussion would convey, and it would be inappropriate to restrict either of these two types of speech. While the Tinker case considered a purely secular message, there is no reason to expect that the religious focus of the church party invitations would not deserve the same legal protection. The student has the religious free exercise right to promote her church’s Christmas party without the religious content of her message being restricted. Such restrictions would constitute viewpoint discrimination, and it is this potential hostility towards the religious aspect of the student’s speech which Stephen Carter finds so disturbing about the American culture in The Culture of Disbelief.

The superintendant may try to base his restriction of the student's invitations on the basis of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000). Here, the Supreme Court found a student-delivered prayer before a high school football game to be an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause. However, Santa Fe is too different from the case at hand to provide support for the superintendant's actions. The majority in the Santa Fe decision found the prayer to have direct government support. The public school provided the platform, audience, and venue for the prayer. Based on these facts, a reasonable observer would find the school to be endorsing the religious message presented by the student at the football game. Regarding the church Christmas party invitations, the student's message would not have received school sponsorship simply by being allowed to be distributed. The school does not endorse the birthday parties of its students anymore than it would have endorsed the church party, and a reasonable child would not infer school sponsorship of either invitation. Just as any student can invite their schoolmates to a birthday party, they have the right to invite their friends to a church party and should not have such actions restricted based solely on the religious content of their message.

About : Raja CRN

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