New York City may again block religious groups from using school facilities outside of regular school hours for “religious worship services,” a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Thursday.
Deciding 2 to 1, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said the city had “a strong basis to believe” that allowing the religious services to be conducted in schools could be seen as the kind of endorsement of religion that violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
“When worship services are performed in a place,” Judge Pierre N. Leval wrote for the majority, “the nature of the site changes. The site is no longer simply a room in a school being used temporarily for some activity.”
Among other gems in this report was this quote:
[blockquote]“the fact that New York City’s school facilities are more available on Sundays than any other day of the week means that there is a de facto bias in favor of Christian groups who want to use the schools for worship services.†[/blockquote]
I could be wrong, but I think this is an example of what is termed tautological nonsense.
I haven’t read the judges’ majority opinion. But if the church/churches want to make an issue of it, they are on solid ground with strong and higher legal precedents in their favor. Unless school systems close their doors to ALL community/non-profit groups, they cannot discriminate on the basis of speech content. For example, if they rent/grant facility access to, say, a girl scouts troop or a community Great Books discussion group or some other vounteer or non-profit group, they cannot deny the same right to a community religious group because members might pray, quote the Bible, or engage in other religious speech.
I certainly do believe that a rental fee would be in order to cover the public’s cost to maintain the property — as long as the fee requirement applies to all community groups using the facilities.
w.w.
Sounds like someone(s) has an axe to grind against the success of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (–worshiping at Hunter College/Hunter College High School-publicly funded).
Well, we at least don’t have that problem where I live in California. Our school district is strapped for cash, and I’m sure that’s true all over the state. The churches gladly pay for the use of the general purpose rooms on Sunday mornings.
Note that this decision is not one where some outsider to a church/state arrangement has complained. The City does not want to allow use by religious groups and the Court has affirmed that it can decline to do so without violating any federal standard. This seems unremarkable. No doubt one reason the City is reluctant to provide space is the problem of then not being able to say no to any religious group. In New York City, particularly, I can imagine that there would be a stunning variety of possible aspiring users.
That’s all well and good, NOVA but the schools can’t just deny access to “religious groups” based on the higher precedents – that runs afoul of free speech and free exercise. You can establish standards for use of the facilities. As for “changing the character” of the place, that is the lamest argument I have seen in some time. If you come in set up the chairs, put the chairs back and it looks like you’ve never been there – which is what most schools require – it’s hard to see how this argument sticks. Once again we live in a culture where people think law is in place so that no one will ever be offended – or at least offended by religion.
I haven’t read the court decision, so I’m hesitant to get too drawn in on the First Amendment issues. But it strikes me that there is a non-trivial constitutional distinction between making the school available for Muslim religious services (or Christian services, for that matter), and making them available for the local Flower Arranging Club. It also seems that once one religion was accommodated all would have to be. If the City doesn’t want to go down that road, it doesn’t strike me as odd for the Court’s to say that it doesn’t have to. Most of these cases involve a situation where a government entity has made facilities available for religious use, and the ACLU or some “aggrieved” non-religious person complains. This decision addresses whether the accommodation has to be made in the first instance.
6, it’s still viewpoint discrimination. All or none.
What’s the constitutional mandate that says that if we allow the Garden Club to use public premises, we have to allow Hindu rites in the same space, No. 7? I certainly am aware of none.
NoVA Scout,
Here’s the precedent: [i]Good News Club v. Milford Central School[/i] settled by the supreme court in 2001. Basically, the court said that if other groups can rent the facilities, it constitutes religious discrimination if sectarian groups can’t rent them. The NY school and either ban every body or they have to permit religious groups…
The Good News case doesn’t quite address my question, RJ. The majority on the Second Circuit didn’t think it addressed the situation before them, either, and spent some time distinguishing it. The distinction that they saw (who knows whether it will be sustained if the Supreme Court grants review) is that the restriction imposed by the Board in this case was against worship services or using the school property as a house of worship (hence my hypothetical of using the school for Hindu rites), as opposed to simply forbidding a group to use the space because the group had religious views. One is a function-based restriction and the other is an exclusion based on opinions or views held. I acknowledge that this is chopping things rather find, as often happens in First Amendment cases. It appears to me that this one might have legs enough to get picked up for review.
NoVA Scout,
Given the findings of fact in the Good News Club case (that the meeting was basically a religious service) I fail to see how this is not on point and how the 2nd court’s decision will not be overturned by the supreme court. The composition hasn’t changed in this regard. I do agree it will go there…
“When worship services are performed in a place,†Judge Pierre N. Leval wrote for the majority, “the nature of the site changes. The site is no longer simply a room in a school being used temporarily for some activity.â€
Pure legal sophistry. Whether a school room is used temporarily for a worship service or a chess tournament does not ontologically change the nature of the school or the school room, an ontological change which the court seems to imply. The court is using viewpoint discrimination to decide which temporary use the otherwise empty room can be used for. Come Monday the school uses the room unchanged for whatever school purpose it was designed for.
Of course the school could not discriminate as to which religions used the room.
I don’t think we’re really disagreeing with each other, at least not much. But it is one of those things that one has to be careful about what one wishes for. If a school system that makes facilities available for secular, non-educational uses must make its facilities available for worship services (presumably on equal terms of rent etc.), there is no principle on which a school system that permits Christian worship could exclude Hindu or Muslim worship. I would prefer that government schools simply stay out of the religious worship facilities business altogether, frankly.