MANHATTAN (CN) - New York City public schools can block religious groups from using their facilities for after-hours worship services, the 2nd Circuit ruled Thursday in the 17-year-old dispute.
The ruling, which marks the fourth time the court has ruled on the case, vacates a permanent injunction issued by a federal judge in favor of a Christian church that first applied in 1994 to hold Sunday services at an elementary school in the Bronx.
Bronx Household of Faith has been holding regular Sunday services at P.S. 15 since obtaining an injunction in 2004, but the history of the case stretches back 10 years earlier.
The church and two of its pastors, Robert Hall and Jack Roberts, filed suit in 1994 when the New York City Board of Education rejected its application under a section of the board's Standard Operating Procedure Manual that prohibits the use of school property for "religious services or religious instruction."
Bronx Household of Faith explained in its application that its services would include singing, prayer, Biblical preaching and a "fellowship meal," during which attendees "share one another's joys and sorrows."
In the original lawsuit, the church claimed viewpoint discrimination in violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. Though the courts tossed that case, the church won a preliminary injunction to hold its services after the Supreme Court's 2001 decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School. That case involved a private Christian organization for children that was unconstitutionally barred from using the facilities of an upstate New York public school district to sing songs, read Bible lessons, memorize scripture and pray.
In an effort to distance itself from Milford's unconstitutional regulations, the New York City school board revised its Standard Operating Procedure Manual. The new standard established in section 5.11 prohibited use of school property for "religious worship services, or otherwise using a school as a house of worship."
By July 2007, the board adopted and published its new standard, then rejected Bronx Household of Faith on that basis. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the church and blocked regulation, but the appellate panel majority vacated this holding Thursday.
"The prohibition against using school facilities for the conduct of religious worship services bars a type of activity," Judge Pierre Leval wrote for the majority. "It does not discriminate against any point of view. The conduct of religious worship services, which the rule excludes, is something quite different from free expression of a religious point of view, which the Board does not prohibit."
Leval distinguishes the case at hand from other cases considered by the Supreme Court.
"[N]either the Supreme Court nor this court has considered the constitutionality of a policy that allows the regular use of public schools for religious worship services," Leval wrote.
"In any event, the reasonableness of the Board's concern to avoid creating a perception of endorsement resulting from regular Sunday conversion of schools into Christian churches, together with the absence of viewpoint-based discrimination, distinguishes this case from the Supreme Court's precedents striking down prohibitions of the use of educational facilities or funds by religious groups," the opinion also states. "All of those cases involved rules or policies which broadly suppressed religious viewpoints and which, in their particular applications, disfavored activities which had far less potential to convey the appearance of official endorsement of religion.