New York had a law that prevented school boards from allowing schools to be used after hours for religious activities. Lamb's Chapel, an evangelical group, twice was refused its requests for use of a public school's facilities. They wanted to use the school to show films from a religious-oriented series concerning family values and child rearing. Both district and appellate courts ruled in favor of the school district, calling the school a 'limited public forum' that need not be available to everyone.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously to reject the school district's decision to refuse to allow school property to be used for religious activities.
| Majority Opinion: (Justice White) |
The critical point is whether the school's decision to refuse the religious group's request was neutral. Because the topic of the films served a social or civic purpose and would be allowed to be shown by a non-religious group, the rejection of the Lamb's Chapel request was not neutral. In an earlier ruling (Cornelius), the Court stated that "although a speaker may be excluded from a nonpublic forum if he wishes to address a topic not encompassed within the purpose of the forum...or if he is not a member of the class of speakers for whose special benefit the forum was created...the government violates the First Amendment when it denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point of view he espouses on an otherwise includible subject". To refuse the forum to the religious group favors some viewpoints at the disadvantage of others. The Establishment Clause would not have been violated because the film would have been shown after hours and would have been open to the public.
The circumstances behind the usage of schools for religious purposes is critical when assessing whether allowing such an activity would create an excessive entanglement. Furthermore, the viewpoint itself, rather than the group presenting it is significant. Because the message itself was appropriate for presentation, the school district could not discriminate against it on account of its messenger.
| RealAudio of Oral Argument |
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Oral Argument.
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