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Overview of the Adler Graduation Prayer Case
"Help us to understand that we must help the one who plunders in some agony or strife, for we know it must be our Christian duty to pay heed to every pride, and deny no soul the kindness of some need we can supply. Lord help us to realize that you made us all to matter to you, our maker, as well as to each other. These and other blessings we ask in the Lord Jesus' name. Amen." -- A student message at Jean Ribault Senior High School's commencement exercise, June 10, 1993.
Emily Adler is Jewish, not Christian. Yet she, like students across Jacksonville public high schools, was required to take part in a student-led Christian prayer at her 1998 graduation ceremony. Similarly, when Leslie Adler, Emily's sister, graduated five years earlier from a public high school, she was compelled to stand up and therefore participate in a non-Jewish prayer. Leslie and Emily were alarmed about their experiences because the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment bans public schools, as government-sponsored institutions, from establishing a school or state religion. These students had further reason for concern because, in Lee v. Weisman, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public school officials violate the Establishment Clause by including nonsectarian or sectarian prayer led by clergy at a graduation ceremony.
In spite of the Constitution and the 1992 Lee decision, Duval public school system "graduation prayer" policy denied seniors such as Leslie and Emily from exercising the religion of their choice. Clergy and other persons traditionally lead the religious message or prayer at graduation ceremonies. Amidst controversy surrounding Lee, the superintendent retracted a prior statement banning prayer at future ceremonies and he then, with support of the school board, instituted a "student message" in place of the traditional prayer. This graduation prayer policy, which has been in effect since May 1993, is designed to transfer the state's responsibility for the religious activity. Students, as opposed to school officials, decide whether to have a senior message; they determine which student should deliver the message and without the school's supervision, the selected student controls the content of that message.
Karen Adler, on her daughter Leslie's behalf, sued along with three additional students to stop further prayer at Duval graduation ceremonies. In 1994, a federal district court in Jacksonville held that the policy did not violate the Establishment Clause. With the help of the ACLU of Florida, Karen appealed the decision to the U.S. Appeals Court for the Eleventh Circuit, where one three-judge panel reviews the case. At this stage, the review process was considerably delayed by procedural obstacles such as an unusual decision to repeat the same hearing before another three judges. In 1997, when Karen's appeal was finally considered, the court found it unnecessary to resolve the constitutional issue since complaining students, all of whom already attended their graduation ceremonies, faced no direct future interest in the outcome of this lawsuit. The case was therefore dismissed as moot.
Again, Karen Adler mounted a challenge to the graduation prayer policy when her daughter Emily and other seniors at Duval County public schools faced the likelihood that their religious freedom rights would be violated at 1998 commencement exercises. This time, however, parents, in the interest of protecting their freedom to instruct their children according to their preferred beliefs, also sued the school system. Younger students also joined the group of plaintiffs because they too had religious freedom rights at stake. After the District Court upheld the policy in a May 1998 decision, the Adler II plaintiffs appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, where one year later a three-judge panel sided with students' and parents' claim that the Duval policy violated the Establishment Clause. Without request by the school board, the court, however, quickly set aside that decision and scheduled a rare type of rehearing before the Eleventh Circuit judges, sitting en banc as a twelve-judge court.
