AS STUDENTS at Mr. Jefferson's University, we all undoubtedly are aware of the constitutional provision explicitly declaring that, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." The framers of our Constitution made the Establishment Clause the most preeminent law of the land in order to restrict the government's ability to propagate religion through legislative means. Fortunately for us, our framers recognized the particular evil that occurs when government enters into the realm of religion, as the separation between church and state is designed not to protect government from the force of religion, but to protect citizens and their private religious beliefs and practices from the force of the government.
Last week, the Supreme Court let stand Virginia's "minute of silence" law, a statute requiring all Virginia public school students "to meditate, pray or engage in any other silent activity." This law ostensibly gives students the opportunity to reflect and promotes discipline within the classroom environment. More importantly, though, lawmakers assert that the minute of silence law is said to be a protector of religious freedom. However, this law is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt by the General Assembly to reintroduce prayer into Virginia's public schools.
In 1985, the Supreme Court invalidated an Alabama law mandating a minute of silence in public schools for students to "meditate or voluntarily pray" on the basis that such statutes offend the Establishment Clause. If you think these two statutes are peculiarly similar, you're right. So, why did the Virginia statute pass constitutional muster when the Alabama law failed? Intent. While members in the Alabama legislature explicitly stated their intent to reintroduce prayer into public schools with their statute, lawmakers in the Virginia legislature publicly feigned religious neutrality.
By not taking the Virginia case, the Supreme Court is seeking to distinguish the Alabama case on the grounds that, while the Alabama statute was wholly religious in purpose, the Virginia statute has two Constitutionally upheld non-religious purposes: to accommodate the free exercise of religion and to improve student focus and discipline. However, these two justifications are insufficient basis for Constitutional legitimacy. Because of the irrelevance of the two above factors, the Supreme Court should have employed the precedent set in the Alabama case to invalidate Virginia's minute of silence law.
It is ridiculous that the General Assembly insists that allowing the minute of silence to take place will accommodate the religious practices of all students. If the legislature were legitimately concerned about protecting the religious freedom of all students, why would the statute only accommodate those students whose religious beliefs embrace engaging in prayer while sitting down and remaining silent? This statute, therefore, is extraordinarily limited in its scope of protecting religion.
The second justification for upholding the Virginia minute of silence law is that such laws improve student focus and discipline. However, no such purpose is mentioned in the statute's text, which only speaks of guaranteeing "the right of every pupil to the free exercise of religion." Clearly, the assembly was unconcerned with student discipline and only employed such arguments to win their case in court. The Supreme Court previously has upheld minute of silence laws when the statute is "not intended to be ... conducted as a religious service or exercise." The true religious intentions of the General Assembly are clear in this case in that the assembly seeks to promote only particular religious observances in the classroom rather than to actually attempt to improve student discipline.
However, the mere existence of a tangential secular purpose of a law is not sufficient justification for allowing a religious statute to be found constitutional. The Supreme Court would not, for example, permit the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom, even if lawmakers assert the posting would be for educational purposes only. Because the Constitution does not permit such egregious violations of religious freedom to take place, it should similarly forbid violations of the more subtle variety.
In order to try to make right the very clear wrong perpetrated by the Virginia General Assembly, the American Civil Liberties Union sued Virginia in order to have the law repealed. By not granting certiorari, the Supreme Court is sending a clear message to state legislatures across the country that prayer in public schools may continue, so long as the state legislature continue to remain deceptive about the true intentions behind the laws they enact.
(Andrew Borchini is a third-year College student. He is president of the ACLU chapter at U.Va.)
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