In Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Chino Valley Unified School District Board of Education, published July 25, 2018, the 9th Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and injunctive relief against the defendant school board. The board instituted a policy of beginning each meeting with a prayer. A rotating set of presenters, from a list, delivered the invocations. Usually invited clergy delivered the prayers. On some occasions, board members led the prayers. School board members made proselytizing remarks concerning Christianity in relation to the invocations. Minor students, from grade school to high school age, took part in the school board meetings. The injunction barred the board members from conducting, permitting, or endorsing school-sponsored prayers in board meetings.
The 9th Circuit agreed that under the circumstances the prayer policy violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The court ruled that the prayer did not fall under the legislative-prayer tradition that permits certain types of prayers to open legislative sessions: solemnizing and unifying prayers aimed at the legislators themselves, conducted before an audience of mature adults. Instead, they are delivered before a group of minor students whose presence is not voluntary and whose relationship to board members (unlike a constituent's relationship to a legislature) is not one of full parity. Further, the historical tradition of legislative prayer does not apply to school board prayer; at the time of the framing, free public education was virtually nonexistent. The framers therefore could not have contemplated whether opening prayers at a government-run school board's meeting would violate the Establishment Clause. The Lemon v. Kurtzman test for determining impermissible establishment of religion therefore applies. The prayer policy fails that test, because it lacks a secular legislative purpose. Government action violates that prong of Lemon when the government's predominant purpose is to advance or favor religion. In evaluating purpose, the court takes the statements of public officials into account. Shortly after the policy was adopted, a board member stated the policy's purpose was to further Christianity. Further, there is no secular ground for limiting solemnization of meetings to prayers or presuppose the solemnizers will be religious leaders. The expressed purpose of demonstrating tolerance for religious diversity fails, because there are many non-Christian faiths in California whose membership lacks a "critical mass" in the district to sustain a community there. The invocation policy therefore reinforces the dominance of particular religious traditions. Further, the policy does not embrace nonreligious belief systems. Further, the policy fosters an impermissible entanglement between religion and government.