CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW YORK.

William J. Butler argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Stanley Geller.

Bertram B. Daiker argued the cause for respondents. With him on the briefs was Wilford E. Neier.

Porter R. Chandler argued the cause for intervenors-respondents. With him on the briefs were Thomas J. Ford and Richard E. Nolan.

Charles A. Brind filed a brief for the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, as amicus curiae, in opposition to the petition for certiorari.

Briefs of amici curiae, urging reversal, were filed by Herbert A. Wolff, Leo Rosen and Nancy Wechsler for the American Ethical Union; Louis Caplan, Edwin J. Lukas, Paul Hartman, Theodore Leskes and Sol Rabkin for the American Jewish Committee et al.; and Leo Pfeffer, Lewis H. Weinstein, Albert Wald, Shad Polier and Samuel Lawrence Brennglass for the Synagogue Council of America et al.

A brief of amici curiae, urging affirmance, was filed by Roger D. Foley, Attorney General of Nevada, Robert [422] Pickrell, Attorney General of Arizona, Frank Holt, Attorney General of Arkansas, Albert L. Coles, Attorney General of Connecticut, Richard W. Ervin, Attorney General of Florida, Eugene Cook, Attorney General of Georgia, Frank Benson, Attorney General of Idaho, Edwin K. Steers, Attorney General of Indiana, William M. Ferguson, Attorney General of Kansas, Jack P. F. Gremillion, Attorney General of Louisiana, Thomas B. Finan, Attorney General of Maryland, Joe T. Patterson, Attorney General of Mississippi, William Maynard, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Arthur J. Sills, Attorney General of New Jersey, Earl E. Hartley, Attorney General of New Mexico, Leslie R. Burgum, Attorney General of North Dakota, David Stahl, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, J. Joseph Nugent, Attorney General of Rhode Island, Daniel R. McLeod, Attorney General of South Carolina, A. C. Miller, Attorney General of South Dakota, Will Wilson, Attorney General of Texas, and C. Donald Robertson, Attorney General of West Virginia.

MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

The respondent Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9, New Hyde Park, New York, acting in its official capacity under state law, directed the School District's principal to cause the following prayer to be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day:

"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."

This daily procedure was adopted on the recommendation of the State Board of Regents, a governmental agency created by the State Constitution to which the New York Legislature has granted broad supervisory, executive, and [423] legislative powers over the State's public school system.^[1] These state officials composed the prayer which they recommended and published as a part of their "Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools," saying: "We believe that this Statement will be subscribed to by all men and women of good will, and we call upon all of them to aid in giving life to our program."

Shortly after the practice of reciting the Regents' prayer was adopted by the School District, the parents of ten pupils brought this action in a New York State Court insisting that use of this official prayer in the public schools was contrary to the beliefs, religions, or religious practices of both themselves and their children. Among other things, these parents challenged the constitutionality of both the state law authorizing the School District to direct the use of prayer in public schools and the School District's regulation ordering the recitation of this particular prayer on the ground that these actions of official governmental agencies violate that part of the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution which commands that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"—a command which was "made applicable to the State of New York by the Fourteenth Amendment of the said Constitution." The New York Court of Appeals, over the dissents of Judges Dye and Fuld, sustained an order of the lower state courts which had upheld the power of New York to use the Regents' prayer as a part of the daily procedures of its public schools so long as the schools did not compel any pupil to join in the prayer over his or his parents' objection.^[2] [424] We granted certiorari to review this important decision involving rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.^[3]

We think that by using its public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. There can, of course, be no doubt that New York's program of daily classroom invocation of God's blessings as prescribed in the Regents' prayer is a religious activity. It is a solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessings of the Almighty. The nature of such a prayer has always been [425] religious, none of the respondents has denied this and the trial court expressly so found:

"The religious nature of prayer was recognized by Jefferson and has been concurred in by theological writers, the United States Supreme Court and State courts and administrative officials, including New York's Commissioner of Education. A committee of the New York Legislature has agreed.

"The Board of Regents as amicus curiae, the respondents and intervenors all concede the religious nature of prayer, but seek to distinguish this prayer because it is based on our spiritual heritage. . . ."^[4]

The petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.

It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. The Book of Common Prayer, [426] which was created under governmental direction and which was approved by Acts of Parliament in 1548 and 1549,^[5] set out in minute detail the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England.^[6] The controversies over the Book and what should be its content repeatedly threatened to disrupt the peace of that country as the accepted forms of prayer in the established church changed with the views of the particular ruler that happened to be in control at the time.^[7] Powerful groups representing some of the varying religious views of the people struggled among themselves to impress their particular views upon the Government and [427] obtain amendments of the Book more suitable to their respective notions of how religious services should be conducted in order that the official religious establishment would advance their particular religious beliefs.^[8] Other groups, lacking the necessary political power to influence the Government on the matter, decided to leave England and its established church and seek freedom in America from England's governmentally ordained and supported religion.

It is an unfortunate fact of history that when some of the very groups which had most strenuously opposed the established Church of England found themselves sufficiently in control of colonial governments in this country to write their own prayers into law, they passed laws making their own religion the official religion of their respective colonies.^[9] Indeed, as late as the time of the Revolutionary [428] War, there were established churches in at least eight of the thirteen former colonies and established religions in at least four of the other five.^[10] But the successful Revolution against English political domination was shortly followed by intense opposition to the practice of establishing religion by law. This opposition crystallized rapidly into an effective political force in Virginia where the minority religious groups such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers and Baptists had gained such strength that the adherents to the established Episcopal Church were actually a minority themselves. In 1785-1786, those opposed to the established Church, led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who, though themselves not members of any of these dissenting religious groups, opposed all religious establishments by law on grounds of principle, obtained the enactment of the famous "Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty" by which all religious groups were placed on an equal footing so far as the State was concerned.^[11] Similar though less far-reaching [429] legislation was being considered and passed in other States.^[12]

By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, our history shows that there was a widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of Church and State. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Government's placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services. They knew the anguish, hardship and bitter strife that could come when zealous religious groups struggled with one another to obtain the Government's stamp of approval from each King, Queen, or Protector that came to temporary power. The Constitution was intended to avert a part of this danger by leaving the government of this country in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of any monarch. But this safeguard was not enough. Our Founders were no more willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying whenever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box than they were to let these vital matters of personal conscience depend upon the succession of monarchs. The First Amendment was added to the Constitution to stand as a guarantee that neither the power nor the prestige of the Federal Government would be used to control, support or influence the kinds of prayer the American people can say— [430] that the people's religious must not be subjected to the pressures of government for change each time a new political administration is elected to office. Under that Amendment's prohibition against governmental establishment of religion, as reinforced by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity.

There can be no doubt that New York's state prayer program officially establishes the religious beliefs embodied in the Regents' prayer. The respondents' argument to the contrary, which is largely based upon the contention that the Regents' prayer is "non-denominational" and the fact that the program, as modified and approved by state courts, does not require all pupils to recite the prayer but permits those who wish to do so to remain silent or be excused from the room, ignores the essential nature of the program's constitutional defects. Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause, as it might from the Free Exercise Clause, of the First Amendment, both of which are operative against the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although these two clauses may in certain instances overlap, they forbid two quite different kinds of governmental encroachment upon religious freedom. The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not. This is not to say, of course, that [431] laws officially prescribing a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of such individuals. When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause go much further than that. Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. The history of governmentally established religion, both in England and in this country, showed that whenever government had allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs.^[13] That same history showed that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had relied upon the support of government to spread its faith.^[14] The Establishment Clause [432] thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its "unhallowed perversion" by a civil magistrate.^[15] Another purpose of the Establishment Clause rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand.^[16] The Founders knew that only a few years after the Book of Common Prayer became the only accepted form of religious services in the established Church of England, an Act of Uniformity was passed to compel all Englishmen to attend those services and to make it a criminal offense to conduct or attend religious gatherings of any other kind^[17]—a law [433] which was consistently flouted by dissenting religious groups in England and which contributed to widespread persecutions of people like John Bunyan who persisted in holding "unlawful [religious] meetings . . . to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom . . . ."^[18] And they knew that similar persecutions had received the sanction of law in several of the colonies in this country soon after the establishment of official religions in those colonies.^[19] It was in large part to get completely away from this sort of systematic religious persecution that the Founders brought into being our Nation, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights with its prohibition against any governmental establishment of religion. The New York laws officially prescribing the Regents' prayer are inconsistent both with the purposes of the Establishment Clause and with the Establishment Clause itself.

It has been argued that to apply the Constitution in such a way as to prohibit state laws respecting an [434] establishment of religious services in public schools is to indicate a hostility toward religion or toward prayer. Nothing, of course, could be more wrong. The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And perhaps it is not too much to say that since the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." It was doubtless largely due to men who believed this that there grew up a sentiment that caused men to leave the cross-currents of officially established state religions and religious persecution in Europe and come to this country filled with the hope that they could find a place in which they could pray when they pleased to the God of their faith in the language they chose.^[20] And there were men of this same faith in the [435] power of prayer who led the fight for adoption of our Constitution and also for our Bill of Rights with the very guarantees of religious freedom that forbid the sort of governmental activity which New York has attempted here. These men knew that the First Amendment, which tried to put an end to governmental control of religion and of prayer, was not written to destroy either. They knew rather that it was written to quiet well-justified fears which nearly all of them felt arising out of an awareness that governments of the past had shackled men's tongues to make them speak only the religious thoughts that government wanted them to speak and to pray only to the God that government wanted them to pray to. It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance.^[21]

[436] It is true that New York's establishment of its Regents' prayer as an officially approved religious doctrine of that State does not amount to a total establishment of one particular religious sect to the exclusion of all others— that, indeed, the governmental endorsement of that prayer seems relatively insignificant when compared to the governmental encroachments upon religion which were commonplace 200 years ago. To those who may subscribe to the view that because the Regents' official prayer is so brief and general there can be no danger to religious freedom in its governmental establishment, however, it may be appropriate to say in the words of James Madison, the author of the First Amendment:

"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. . . . Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"^[22]

The judgment of the Court of Appeals of New York is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER took no part in the decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE WHITE took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

[437] MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

It is customary in deciding a constitutional question to treat it in its narrowest form. Yet at times the setting of the question gives it a form and content which no abstract treatment could give. The point for decision is whether the Government can constitutionally finance a religious exercise. Our system at the federal and state levels is presently honeycombed with such financing.^[23] Nevertheless, I think it is an unconstitutional undertaking whatever form it takes.

First, a word as to what this case does not involve.

[438] Plainly, our Bill of Rights would not permit a State or the Federal Government to adopt an official prayer and penalize anyone who would not utter it. This, however, is not that case, for there is no element of compulsion or coercion in New York's regulation requiring that public schools be opened each day with the following prayer:

"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."

The prayer is said upon the commencement of the school day, immediately following the pledge of allegiance to the flag. The prayer is said aloud in the presence of a teacher, who either leads the recitation or selects a student to do so. No student, however, is compelled to take part. The respondents have adopted a regulation which provides that "Neither teachers nor any school authority shall comment on participation or non-participation. . . nor suggest or request that any posture or language be used or dress be worn or be not used or not worn." Provision is also made for excusing children, upon written request of a parent or guardian, from the saying of the prayer or from the room in which the prayer is said. A letter implementing and explaining this regulation has been sent to each taxpayer and parent in the school district. As I read this regulation, a child is free to stand or not stand, to recite or not recite, without fear of reprisal or even comment by the teacher or any other school official.

In short, the only one who need utter the prayer is the teacher; and no teacher is complaining of it. Students can stand mute or even leave the classroom, if they desire.^[24]

[439] McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, does not decide this case. It involved the use of public school facilities for religious education of students. Students either had to attend religious instruction or "go to some other place in the school building for pursuit of their secular studies. . . . Reports of their presence or absence were to be made to their secular teachers." Id., at 209. The influence of the teaching staff was therefore brought to bear on the student body, to support the instilling of religious principles. In the present case, school facilities are used to say the prayer and the teaching staff is employed to lead the pupils in it. There is, however, no effort at indoctrination and no attempt at exposition. Prayers of course may be so long and of such a character as to amount to an attempt at the religious instruction that was denied the public schools by the McCollum case. But New York's prayer is of a character that does not involve any element of proselytizing as in the McCollum case.

The question presented by this case is therefore an extremely narrow one. It is whether New York oversteps the bounds when it finances a religious exercise.

What New York does on the opening of its public schools is what we do when we open court. Our Crier has from the beginning announced the convening of the Court and then added "God save the United States and this Honorable Court." That utterance is a supplication, a prayer in which we, the judges, are free to join, but which we need not recite any more than the students need recite the New York prayer.

What New York does on the opening of its public schools is what each House of Congress^[25] does at the opening [440] of each day's business.^[26] Reverend Frederick B. Harris is Chaplain of the Senate; Reverend Bernard Braskamp is Chaplain of the House. Guest chaplains of various denominations also officiate.^[27]

[441] In New York the teacher who leads in prayer is on the public payroll; and the time she takes seems minuscule as compared with the salaries appropriated by state legislatures and Congress for chaplains to conduct prayers in the legislative halls. Only a bare fraction of the teacher's time is given to reciting this short 22-word prayer, about the same amount of time that our Crier spends announcing the opening of our sessions and offering a prayer for this Court. Yet for me the principle is the same, no matter how briefly the prayer is said, for in each of the instances given the person praying is a public official on the public payroll, performing a religious exercise in a governmental institution.^[28] It is said that the [442] element of coercion is inherent in the giving of this prayer. If that is true here, it is also true of the prayer with which this Court is convened, and of those that open the Congress. Few adults, let alone children, would leave our courtroom or the Senate or the House while those prayers are being given. Every such audience is in a sense a "captive" audience.

At the same time I cannot say that to authorize this prayer is to establish a religion in the strictly historic meaning of those words.^[29] A religion is not established in the usual sense merely by letting those who choose to do so say the prayer that the public school teacher leads. Yet once government finances a religious exercise it inserts a divisive influence into our communities.^[30] The New York Court said that the prayer given does not conform to all of the tenets of the Jewish, Unitarian, and Ethical Culture groups. One of the petitioners is an agnostic.

"We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313. Under our Bill of Rights free play is given for [443] making religion an active force in our lives.^[31] But "if a religious leaven is to be worked into the affairs of our people, it is to be done by individuals and groups, not by the Government." McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 563 (dissenting opinion). By reason of the First Amendment government is commanded "to have no interest in theology or ritual" (id., at 564), for on those matters "government must be neutral." Ibid. The First Amendment leaves the Government in a position not of hostility to religion but of neutrality. The philosophy is that the atheist or agnostic—the nonbeliever —is entitled to go his own way. The philosophy is that if government interferes in matters spiritual, it will be a divisive force. The First Amendment teaches that a government neutral in the field of religion better serves all religious interests.

My problem today would be uncomplicated but for Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 17, which allowed taxpayers' money to be used to pay "the bus fares of parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which" the fares of pupils attending public and other schools were also paid. The Everson case seems in retrospect to be out of line with the First Amendment. Its result is appealing, as it allows aid to be given to needy children. Yet by the same token, public funds could be used to satisfy other needs of children in parochial schools—lunches, books, and tuition being obvious examples. Mr. Justice Rutledge stated in dissent what I think is durable First Amendment philosophy:

"The reasons underlying the Amendment's policy have not vanished with time or diminished in force. [444] Now as when it was adopted the price of religious freedom is double. It is that the church and religion shall live both within and upon that freedom. There cannot be freedom of religion, safeguarded by the state, and intervention by the church or its agencies in the state's domain or dependency on its largesse. Madison's Remonstrance, Par. 6, 8. The great condition of religious liberty is that it be maintained free from sustenance, as also from other interferences, by the state. For when it comes to rest upon that secular foundation it vanishes with the resting. Id., Par. 7, 8. Public money devoted to payment of religious costs, educational or other, brings the quest for more. It brings too the struggle of sect against sect for the larger share or for any. Here one by numbers alone will benefit most, there another. That is precisely the history of societies which have had an established religion and dissident groups. Id., Par. 8, 11. It is the very thing Jefferson and Madison experienced and sought to guard against, whether in its blunt or in its more screened forms. Ibid. The end of such strife cannot be other than to destroy the cherished liberty. The dominating group will achieve the dominant benefit; or all will embroil the state in their dissensions. Id., Par. 11." Id., pp. 53-54.

What New York does with this prayer is a break with that tradition. I therefore join the Court in reversing the judgment below.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, dissenting.

A local school board in New York has provided that those pupils who wish to do so may join in a brief prayer at the beginning of each school day, acknowledging their dependence upon God and asking His blessing upon them [445] and upon their parents, their teachers, and their country. The Court today decides that in permitting this brief nondenominational prayer the school board has violated the Constitution of the United States. I think this decision is wrong.

The Court does not hold, nor could it, that New York has interfered with the free exercise of anybody's religion. For the state courts have made clear that those who object to reciting the prayer must be entirely free of any compulsion to do so, including any "embarrassments and pressures." Cf. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624. But the Court says that in permitting school children to say this simple prayer, the New York authorities have established "an official religion."

With all respect, I think the Court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an "official religion" is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation.

The Court's historical review of the quarrels over the Book of Common Prayer in England throws no light for me on the issue before us in this case. England had then and has now an established church. Equally unenlightening, I think, is the history of the early establishment and later rejection of an official church in our own States. For we deal here not with the establishment of a state church, which would, of course, be constitutionally impermissible, but with whether school children who want to begin their day by joining in prayer must be prohibited from doing so. Moreover, I think that the Court's task, in this as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the "wall of separation," a phrase nowhere to [446] be found in the Constitution. What is relevant to the issue here is not the history of an established church in sixteenth century England or in eighteenth century America, but the history of the religious traditions of our people, reflected in countless practices of the institutions and officials of our government.

At the opening of each day's Session of this Court we stand, while one of our officials invokes the protection of God. Since the days of John Marshall our Crier has said, "God save the United States and this Honorable Court."^[32] Both the Senate and the House of Representatives open their daily Sessions with prayer.^[33] Each of our Presidents, from George Washington to John F. Kennedy, has upon assuming his Office asked the protection and help of God.^[34]

[449] The Court today says that the state and federal governments are without constitutional power to prescribe any particular form of words to be recited by any group of the American people on any subject touching religion.^[35] One of the stanzas of "The Star-Spangled Banner," made our National Anthem by Act of Congress in 1931,^[36] contains these verses:

"Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto `In God is our Trust.' "

In 1954 Congress added a phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag so that it now contains the words "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."^[37] In 1952 Congress enacted legislation calling upon the President each year to proclaim a National Day of Prayer.^[38] Since 1865 the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" have been impressed on our coins.^[39]

[450] Countless similar examples could be listed, but there is no need to belabor the obvious.^[40] It was all summed up by this Court just ten years ago in a single sentence: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313.

I do not believe that this Court, or the Congress, or the President has by the actions and practices I have mentioned established an "official religion" in violation of the Constitution. And I do not believe the State of New York has done so in this case. What each has done has been to recognize and to follow the deeply entrenched and highly cherished spiritual traditions of our Nation— traditions which come down to us from those who almost two hundred years ago avowed their "firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence" when they proclaimed the freedom and independence of this brave new world.^[41]

I dissent.

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[1] See New York Constitution, Art. V, § 4; New York Education Law, §§ 101, 120 et seq., 202, 214-219, 224, 245 et seq., 704, and 801 et seq.

[2] 10 N. Y. 2d 174, 176 N. E. 2d 579. The trial court's opinion, which is reported at 18 Misc. 2d 659, 191 N. Y. S. 2d 453, had made it clear that the Board of Education must set up some sort of procedures to protect those who objected to reciting the prayer: "This is not to say that the rights accorded petitioners and their children under the `free exercise' clause do not mandate safeguards against such embarrassments and pressures. It is enough on this score, however, that regulations, such as were adopted by New York City's Board of Education in connection with its released time program, be adopted, making clear that neither teachers nor any other school authority may comment on participation or nonparticipation in the exercise nor suggest or require that any posture or language be used or dress be worn or be not used or not worn. Nonparticipation may take the form either of remaining silent during the exercise, or if the parent or child so desires, of being excused entirely from the exercise. Such regulations must also make provision for those nonparticipants who are to be excused from the prayer exercise. The exact provision to be made is a matter for decision by the board, rather than the court, within the framework of constitutional requirements. Within that framework would fall a provision that prayer participants proceed to a common assembly while nonparticipants attend other rooms, or that nonparticipants be permitted to arrive at school a few minutes late or to attend separate opening exercises, or any other method which treats with equality both participants and nonparticipants." 18 Misc. 2d, at 696, 191 N. Y. S. 2d, at 492-493. See also the opinion of the Appellate Division affirming that of the trial court, reported at 11 App. Div. 2d 340, 206 N. Y. S. 2d 183.

[3] 368 U. S. 924.

[4] 18 Misc. 2d, at 671-672, 191 N. Y. S. 2d, at 468-469.

[5] 2 & 3 Edward VI, c. 1, entitled "An Act for Uniformity of Service and Administration of the Sacraments throughout the Realm"; 3 & 4 Edward VI, c. 10, entitled "An Act for the abolishing and putting away of divers Books and Images."

[6] The provisions of the various versions of the Book of Common Prayer are set out in broad outline in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18 (1957 ed.), pp. 420-423. For a more complete description, see Pullan, The History of the Book of Common Prayer (1900).

[7] The first major revision of the Book of Common Prayer was made in 1552 during the reign of Edward VI. 5 & 6 Edward VI, c. 1. In 1553, Edward VI died and was succeeded by Mary who abolished the Book of Common Prayer entirely. 1 Mary, c. 2. But upon the accession of Elizabeth in 1558, the Book was restored with important alterations from the form it had been given by Edward VI. 1 Elizabeth, c. 2. The resentment to this amended form of the Book was kept firmly under control during the reign of Elizabeth but, upon her death in 1603, a petition signed by more than 1,000 Puritan ministers was presented to King James I asking for further alterations in the Book. Some alterations were made and the Book retained substantially this form until it was completely suppressed again in 1645 as a result of the successful Puritan Revolution. Shortly after the restoration in 1660 of Charles II, the Book was again reintroduced, 13 & 14 Charles II, c. 4, and again with alterations. Rather than accept this form of the Book some 2,000 Puritan ministers vacated their benefices. See generally Pullan, The History of the Book of Common Prayer (1900), pp. vii-xvi; Encyclopaedia Britannica (1957 ed.), Vol. 18, pp. 421-422.

[8] For example, the Puritans twice attempted to modify the Book of Common Prayer and once attempted to destroy it. The story of their struggle to modify the Book in the reign of Charles I is vividly summarized in Pullan, History of the Book of Common Prayer, at p. xiii: "The King actively supported those members of the Church of England who were anxious to vindicate its Catholic character and maintain the ceremonial which Elizabeth had approved. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the leader of this school. Equally resolute in his opposition to the distinctive tenets of Rome and of Geneva, he enjoyed the hatred of both Jesuit and Calvinist. He helped the Scottish bishops, who had made large concessions to the uncouth habits of Presbyterian worship, to draw up a Book of Common Prayer for Scotland. It contained a Communion Office resembling that of the book of 1549. It came into use in 1637, and met with a bitter and barbarous opposition. The vigour of the Scottish Protestants strengthened the hands of their English sympathisers. Laud and Charles were executed, Episcopacy was abolished, the use of the Book of Common Prayer was prohibited."

[9] For a description of some of the laws enacted by early theocratic governments in New England, see Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (1930), Vol. 1, pp. 5-50; Whipple, Our Ancient Liberties (1927), pp. 63-78; Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy (1947).

[10] The Church of England was the established church of at least five colonies: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. There seems to be some controversy as to whether that church was officially established in New York and New Jersey but there is no doubt that it received substantial support from those States. See Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), pp. 338, 408. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, the Congregationalist Church was officially established. In Pennsylvania and Delaware, all Christian sects were treated equally in most situations but Catholics were discriminated against in some respects. See generally Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902). In Rhode Island all Protestants enjoyed equal privileges but it is not clear whether Catholics were allowed to vote. Compare Fiske, The Critical Period in American History (1899), p. 76 with Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), pp. 437-438.

[11] 12 Hening, Statutes of Virginia (1823), 84, entitled "An act for establishing religious freedom." The story of the events surrounding the enactment of this law was reviewed in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, both by the Court, at pp. 11-13, and in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Rutledge, at pp. 33-42. See also Fiske, The Critical Period in American History (1899), pp. 78-82; James, The Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (1900); Thom, The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia: The Baptists (1900); Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), pp. 74-115, 482-499.

[12] See Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), pp. 482-509.

[13] "[A]ttempts to enforce by legal sanctions, acts obnoxious to so great a proportion of Citizens, tend to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the bands of Society. If it be difficult to execute any law which is not generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be the case where it is deemed invalid and dangerous? and what may be the effect of so striking an example of impotency in the Government, on its general authority." Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, II Writings of Madison 183, 190.

[14] "It is moreover to weaken in those who profess this Religion a pious confidence in its innate excellence, and the patronage of its Author; and to foster in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends are too conscious of its fallacies, to trust it to its own merits. . . . [E]xperience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries, has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Enquire of the Teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it appeared in its greatest lustre; those of every sect, point to the ages prior to its incorporation with Civil policy." Id., at 187.

[15] Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, II Writings of Madison, at 187.

[16] "[T]he proposed establishment is a departure from that generous policy, which, offering an asylum to the persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion, promised a lustre to our country, and an accession to the number of its citizens. What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. . . . Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under this cruel scourge in foreign Regions, must view the Bill as a Beacon on our Coast, warning him to seek some other haven, where liberty and philanthropy in their due extent may offer a more certain repose from his troubles." Id., at 188.

[17] 5 & 6 Edward VI, c. 1, entitled "An Act for the Uniformity of Service and Administration of Sacraments throughout the Realm." This Act was repealed during the reign of Mary but revived upon the accession of Elizabeth. See note 7, supra. The reasons which led to the enactment of this statute were set out in its preamble: "Where there hath been a very godly Order set forth by the Authority of Parliament, for Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments to be used in the Mother Tongue within the Church of England, agreeable to the Word of God and the Primitive Church, very comfortable to all good People desiring to live in Christian Conversation, and most profitable to the Estate of this Realm, upon the which the Mercy, Favour and Blessing of Almighty God is in no wise so readily and plenteously poured as by Common Prayers, due using of the Sacraments, and often preaching of the Gospel, with the Devotion of the Hearers: (1) And yet this notwithstanding, a great Number of People in divers Parts of this Realm, following their own Sensuality, and living either without Knowledge or due Fear of God, do wilfully and damnably before Almighty God abstain and refuse to come to their Parish Churches and other Places where Common Prayer, Administration of the Sacraments, and Preaching of the Word of God, is used upon Sundays and other Days ordained to be Holydays."

[18] Bunyan's own account of his trial is set forth in A Relation of the Imprisonment of Mr. John Bunyan, reprinted in Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim's Progress (Brown ed. 1907), at 103-132.

[19] For a vivid account of some of these persecutions, see Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy (1947).

[20] Perhaps the best example of the sort of men who came to this country for precisely that reason is Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who has been described as "the truest Christian amongst many who sincerely desired to be Christian." Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (1930), Vol. 1, at p. 74. Williams, who was one of the earliest exponents of the doctrine of separation of church and state, believed that separation was necessary in order to protect the church from the danger of destruction which he thought inevitably flowed from control by even the best-intentioned civil authorities: "The unknowing zeale of Constantine and other Emperours, did more hurt to Christ Jesus his Crowne and Kingdome, then the raging fury of the most bloody Neroes. In the persecutions of the later, Christians were sweet and fragrant, like spice pounded and beaten in morters: But those good Emperours, persecuting some erroneous persons, Arrius, & c. and advancing the professours of some Truths of Christ (for there was no small number of Truths lost in those times) and maintaining their Religion by the materiall Sword, I say by this meanes Christianity was ecclipsed, and the Professors of it fell asleep . . . ." Williams, The Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, discussed in A Conference between Truth and Peace (London, 1644), reprinted in Narragansett Club Publications, Vol. III, p. 184. To Williams, it was no part of the business or competence of a civil magistrate to interfere in religious matters: "[W]hat imprudence and indiscretion is it in the most common affaires of Life, to conceive that Emperours, Kings and Rulers of the earth must not only be qualified with politicall and state abilities to make and execute such Civill Lawes which may concerne the common rights, peace and safety (which is worke and businesse, load and burthen enough for the ablest shoulders in the Commonweal) but also furnished with such Spirituall and heavenly abilities to governe the Spirituall and Christian Commonweale . . . ." Id., at 366. See also id., at 136-137.

[21] There is of course nothing in the decision reached here that is inconsistent with the fact that school children and others are officially encouraged to express love for our country by reciting historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence which contain references to the Deity or by singing officially espoused anthems which include the composer's professions of faith in a Supreme Being, or with the fact that there are many manifestations in our public life of belief in God. Such patriotic or ceremonial occasions bear no true resemblance to the unquestioned religious exercise that the State of New York has sponsored in this instance.

[22] Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, II Writings of Madison 183, at 185-186.

[23] "There are many `aids' to religion in this country at all levels of government. To mention but a few at the federal level, one might begin by observing that the very First Congress which wrote the First Amendment provided for chaplains in both Houses and in the armed services. There is compulsory chapel at the service academies, and religious services are held in federal hospitals and prisons. The President issues religious proclamations. The Bible is used for the administration of oaths. N. Y. A. and W. P. A. funds were available to parochial schools during the depression. Veterans receiving money under the `G. I.' Bill of 1944 could attend denominational schools, to which payments were made directly by the government. During World War II, federal money was contributed to denominational schools for the training of nurses. The benefits of the National School Lunch Act are available to students in private as well as public schools. The Hospital Survey and Construction Act of 1946 specifically made money available to non-public hospitals. The slogan `In God We Trust' is used by the Treasury Department, and Congress recently added God to the pledge of allegiance. There is Bible-reading in the schools of the District of Columbia, and religious instruction is given in the District's National Training School for Boys. Religious organizations are exempt from the federal income tax and are granted postal privileges. Up to defined limits—15 per cent of the adjusted gross income of individuals and 5 per cent of the net income of corporations—contributions to religious organizations are deductible for federal income tax purposes. There are no limits to the deductibility of gifts and bequests to religious institutions made under the federal gift and estate tax laws. This list of federal `aids' could easily be expanded, and of course there is a long list in each state." Fellman, The Limits of Freedom (1959), pp. 40-41.

[24] West Point Cadets are required to attend chapel each Sunday. Reg., c. 21, § 2101. The same requirement obtains at the Naval Academy (Reg., c. 9, § 0901, (1) (a)), and at the Air Force Academy except First Classmen. Catalogue, 1962-1963, p. 110. And see Honeywell, Chaplains of the United States Army (1958): Jorgensen, The Service of Chaplains to Army Air Units, 1917-1946, Vol. I (1961).

[25] The New York Legislature follows the same procedure. See, e.g., Vol. 1, N. Y. Assembly Jour., 184th Sess., 1961, p. 8: Vol. 1, N. Y. Senate Jour., 184th Sess., 1961, p. 5.

[26] Rules of the Senate provide that each calendar day's session shall open with prayer. See Rule III, Senate Manual, S. Doc. No. 2, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. The same is true of the Rules of the House. See Rule VII, Rules of the House of Representatives, H. R. Doc. No. 459, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. The Chaplains of the Senate and of the House receive $8,810 annually. See 75 Stat. 320, 324.

[27] It would, I assume, make no difference in the present case if a different prayer were said every day or if the ministers of the community rotated, each giving his own prayer. For some of the petitioners in the present case profess no religion.

The Pledge of Allegiance, like the prayer, recognizes the existence of a Supreme Being. Since 1954 it has contained the words "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." 36 U. S. C. § 172. The House Report recommending the addition of the words "under God" stated that those words in no way run contrary to the First Amendment but recognize "only the guidance of God in our national affairs." H. R. Rep. No. 1693, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 3. And see S. Rep. No. 1287, 83d Cong., 2d Sess. Senator Ferguson, who sponsored the measure in the Senate, pointed out that the words "In God We Trust" are over the entrance to the Senate Chamber. 100 Cong. Rec. 6348. He added:

"I have felt that the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag which stands for the United States of America should recognize the Creator who we really believe is in control of the destinies of this great Republic.

"It is true that under the Constitution no power is lodged anywhere to establish a religion. This is not an attempt to establish a religion; it has nothing to do with anything of that kind. It relates to belief in God, in whom we sincerely repose our trust. We know that America cannot be defended by guns, planes, and ships alone. Appropriations and expenditures for defense will be of value only if the God under whom we live believes that we are in the right. We should at all times recognize God's province over the lives of our people and over this great Nation." Ibid. And see 100 Cong. Rec. 7757 et seq. for the debates in the House.

The Act of March 3, 1865, 13 Stat. 517, 518, authorized the phrase "In God We Trust" to be placed on coins. And see 17 Stat. 427. The first mandatory requirement for the use of that motto on coins was made by the Act of May 18, 1908, 35 Stat. 164. See H. R. Rep. No. 1106, 60th Cong., 1st Sess.; 42 Cong. Rec. 3384 et seq. The use of the motto on all currency and coins was directed by the Act of July 11, 1955, 69 Stat. 290. See H. R. Rep. No. 662, 84th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. Rep. No. 637, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. Moreover, by the Joint Resolution of July 30, 1956, our national motto was declared to be "In God We Trust." 70 Stat. 732. In reporting the Joint Resolution, the Senate Judiciary Committee stated:

"Further official recognition of this motto was given by the adoption of the Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem. One stanza of our national anthem is as follows:

" `O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation! Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must when our cause it is just, And this be our motto—"In God is our trust." And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.'

"In view of these words in our national anthem, it is clear that `In God we trust' has a strong claim as our national motto." S. Rep. No. 2703, 84th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2.

[28] The fact that taxpayers do not have standing in the federal courts to raise the issue (Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447) is of course no justification for drawing a line between what is done in New York on the one hand and on the other what we do and what Congress does in this matter of prayer.

[29] The Court analogizes the present case to those involving the traditional Established Church. We once had an Established Church, the Anglican. All baptisms and marriages had to take place there. That church was supported by taxation. In these and other ways the Anglican Church was favored over the others. The First Amendment put an end to placing any one church in a preferred position. It ended support of any church or all churches by taxation. It went further and prevented secular sanction to any religious ceremony, dogma, or rite. Thus, it prevents civil penalties from being applied against recalcitrants or nonconformists.

[30] Some communities have a Christmas tree purchased with the taxpayers' money. The tree is sometimes decorated with the words "Peace on earth, goodwill to men." At other times the authorities draw from a different version of the Bible which says "Peace on earth to men of goodwill." Christmas, I suppose, is still a religious celebration, not merely a day put on the calendar for the benefit of merchants.

[31] Religion was once deemed to be a function of the public school system. The Northwest Ordinance, which antedated the First Amendment, provided in Article III that "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

[32] See Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, Vol. 1, p. 469.

[33] See Rule III, Senate Manual, S. Doc. No. 2, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. See Rule VII, Rules of the House of Representatives, H. R. Doc. No. 459, 86th Cong., 2d Sess.

[34] For example:

On April 30, 1789, President George Washington said:

". . . it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. . . .

.....

"Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend."

On March 4, 1797, President John Adams said:

"And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of Order, the Fountain of Justice, and the Protector in all ages of the world of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its Government and give it all possible success and duration consistent with the ends of His providence."

On March 4, 1805, President Thomas Jefferson said:

". . . I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations."

On March 4, 1809, President James Madison said:

"But the source to which I look . . . is in . . . my fellow-citizens, and in the counsels of those representing them in the other departments associated in the care of the national interests. In these my confidence will under every difficulty be best placed, next to that which we have all been encouraged to feel in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future."

On March 4, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln said:

". . . Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said `the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

On March 4, 1885, President Grover Cleveland said:

". . . And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country's history, let us invoke His aid and His blessing upon our labors."

On March 5, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson said:

". . . I pray God I may be given the wisdom and the prudence to do my duty in the true spirit of this great people."

On March 4, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

"In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come."

On January 21, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said:

"Before all else, we seek, upon our common labor as a nation, the blessings of Almighty God. And the hopes in our hearts fashion the deepest prayers of our whole people."

On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said:

"The world is very different now. . . . And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

.....

"With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

[35] My brother DOUGLAS says that the only question before us is whether government "can constitutionally finance a religious exercise." The official chaplains of Congress are paid with public money. So are military chaplains. So are state and federal prison chaplains.

[36] 36 U. S. C. § 170.

[37] 36 U. S. C. § 172.

[38] 36 U. S. C. § 185.

[39] 13 Stat. 517, 518; 17 Stat. 427; 35 Stat. 164; 69 Stat. 290. The current provisions are embodied in 31 U. S. C. §§ 324, 324a.

[40] I am at a loss to understand the Court's unsupported ipse dixit that these official expressions of religious faith in and reliance upon a Supreme Being "bear no true resemblance to the unquestioned religious exercise that the State of New York has sponsored in this instance." See ante, p. 435, n. 21. I can hardly think that the Court means to say that the First Amendment imposes a lesser restriction upon the Federal Government than does the Fourteenth Amendment upon the States. Or is the Court suggesting that the Constitution permits judges and Congressmen and Presidents to join in prayer, but prohibits school children from doing so?

[41] The Declaration of Independence ends with this sentence: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA.

John D. Killian III, Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and Philip H. Ward III argued the cause for appellants in No. 142. With them on the brief were David Stahl, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Percival R. Rieder and C. Brewster Rhoads.

Henry W. Sawyer III argued the cause for appellees in No. 142. With him on the brief was Wayland H. Elsbree.

Leonard J. Kerpelman argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioners in No. 119.

Francis B. Burch and George W. Baker, Jr. argued the cause for respondents in No. 119. With them on the brief were Nelson B. Seidman and Philip Z. Altfeld.

[204] Thomas B. Finan, Attorney General of Maryland, argued the cause for the State of Maryland, as amicus curiae, urging affirmance in No. 119. With him on the brief were James P. Garland and Robert F. Sweeney, Assistant Attorneys General of Maryland. Richmond M. Flowers, Attorney General of Alabama, Robert Pickrell, Attorney General of Arizona, Bruce Bennett, Attorney General of Arkansas, Richard W. Ervin, Attorney General of Florida, Eugene Cook, Attorney General of Georgia, Allan G. Shepard, Attorney General of Idaho, William M. Ferguson, Attorney General of Kansas, Jack P. F. Gremillion, Attorney General of Louisiana, Frank E. Hancock, Attorney General of Maine, Joe T. Patterson, Attorney General of Mississippi, William Maynard, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Arthur J. Sills, Attorney General of New Jersey, Earl E. Hartley, Attorney General of New Mexico, Thomas Wade Bruton, Attorney General of North Carolina, J. Joseph Nugent, Attorney General of Rhode Island, Daniel R. McLeod, Attorney General of South Carolina, Frank R. Farrar, Attorney General of South Dakota, and George F. McCanless, Attorney General of Tennessee, joined in the brief on behalf of their respective States, as amici curiae.

[205] MR. JUSTICE CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Once again we are called upon to consider the scope of the provision of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." These companion cases present the issues in the context of state action requiring that schools begin each day with readings from the Bible. While raising the basic questions under slightly different factual situations, the cases permit of joint treatment. In light of the history of the First Amendment and of our cases interpreting and applying its requirements, we hold that the practices at issue and the laws requiring them are unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

I.

The Facts in Each Case: No. 142. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by law, 24 Pa. Stat. § 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928 (Supp. 1960) Dec. 17, 1959, requires that "At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian." The Schempp family, husband and wife and two of their three children, brought suit to enjoin enforcement of the statute, contending that their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are, have been, and will continue to be violated unless this statute be declared unconstitutional as violative of these provisions of the First Amendment. They sought to enjoin the appellant school district, wherein the Schempp children attend school, and its officers and the [206] Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Commonwealth from continuing to conduct such readings and recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the public schools of the district pursuant to the statute. A three-judge statutory District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the statute is violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and directed that appropriate injunctive relief issue. 201 F. Supp. 815.^[2] On appeal by the District, its officials and the Superintendent, under 28 U. S. C. § 1253, we noted probable jurisdiction. 371 U. S. 807.

The appellees Edward Lewis Schempp, his wife Sidney, and their children, Roger and Donna, are of the Unitarian faith and are members of the Unitarian church in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they, as well as another son, Ellory, regularly attend religious services. The latter was originally a party but having graduated from the school system pendente lite was voluntarily dismissed from the action. The other children attend the Abington Senior High School, which is a public school operated by appellant district.

On each school day at the Abington Senior High School between 8:15 and 8:30 a. m., while the pupils are attending their home rooms or advisory sections, opening exercises [207] are conducted pursuant to the statute. The exercises are broadcast into each room in the school building through an intercommunications system and are conducted under the supervision of a teacher by students attending the school's radio and television workshop. Selected students from this course gather each morning in the school's workshop studio for the exercises, which include readings by one of the students of 10 verses of the Holy Bible, broadcast to each room in the building. This is followed by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, likewise over the intercommunications system, but also by the students in the various classrooms, who are asked to stand and join in repeating the prayer in unison. The exercises are closed with the flag salute and such pertinent announcements as are of interest to the students. Participation in the opening exercises, as directed by the statute, is voluntary. The student reading the verses from the Bible may select the passages and read from any version he chooses, although the only copies furnished by the school are the King James version, copies of which were circulated to each teacher by the school district. During the period in which the exercises have been conducted the King James, the Douay and the Revised Standard versions of the Bible have been used, as well as the Jewish Holy Scriptures. There are no prefatory statements, no questions asked or solicited, no comments or explanations made and no interpretations given at or during the exercises. The students and parents are advised that the student may absent himself from the classroom or, should he elect to remain, not participate in the exercises.

It appears from the record that in schools not having an intercommunications system the Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer were conducted by the [208] home-room teacher,^[3] who chose the text of the verses and read them herself or had students read them in rotation or by volunteers. This was followed by a standing recitation of the Lord's Prayer, together with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag by the class in unison and a closing announcement of routine school items of interest.

At the first trial Edward Schempp and the children testified as to specific religious doctrines purveyed by a literal reading of the Bible "which were contrary to the religious beliefs which they held and to their familial teaching." 177 F. Supp. 398, 400. The children testified that all of the doctrines to which they referred were read to them at various times as part of the exercises. Edward Schempp testified at the second trial that he had considered having Roger and Donna excused from attendance at the exercises but decided against it for several reasons, including his belief that the children's relationships with their teachers and classmates would be adversely affected.^[4]

[209] Expert testimony was introduced by both appellants and appellees at the first trial, which testimony was summarized by the trial court as follows:

"Dr. Solomon Grayzel testified that there were marked differences between the Jewish Holy Scriptures and the Christian Holy Bible, the most obvious of which was the absence of the New Testament in the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Dr. Grayzel testified that portions of the New Testament were offensive to Jewish tradition and that, from the standpoint of Jewish faith, the concept of Jesus Christ as the Son of God was `practically blasphemous.' He cited instances in the New Testament which, assertedly, were not only sectarian in nature but tended to bring the Jews into ridicule or scorn. Dr. Grayzel gave as his expert opinion that such material from the New Testament could be explained to Jewish children in such a way as to do no harm to them. But if portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could be, and in his specific experience with children Dr. Grayzel observed, had been, psychologically harmful to the child and had caused a divisive force within the social media of the school.

"Dr. Grayzel also testified that there was significant difference in attitude with regard to the respective Books of the Jewish and Christian Religions in that Judaism attaches no special significance to the reading of the Bible per se and that the Jewish Holy Scriptures are source materials to be studied. But Dr. Grayzel did state that many portions of the New, [210] as well as of the Old, Testament contained passages of great literary and moral value.

"Dr. Luther A. Weigle, an expert witness for the defense, testified in some detail as to the reasons for and the methods employed in developing the King James and the Revised Standard Versions of the Bible. On direct examination, Dr. Weigle stated that the Bible was non-sectarian. He later stated that the phrase `non-sectarian' meant to him non-sectarian within the Christian faiths. Dr. Weigle stated that his definition of the Holy Bible would include the Jewish Holy Scriptures, but also stated that the `Holy Bible' would not be complete without the New Testament. He stated that the New Testament `conveyed the message of Christians.' In his opinion, reading of the Holy Scriptures to the exclusion of the New Testament would be a sectarian practice. Dr. Weigle stated that the Bible was of great moral, historical and literary value. This is conceded by all the parties and is also the view of the court." 177 F. Supp. 398, 401-402.

The trial court, in striking down the practices and the statute requiring them, made specific findings of fact that the children's attendance at Abington Senior High School is compulsory and that the practice of reading 10 verses from the Bible is also compelled by law. It also found that:

"The reading of the verses, even without comment, possesses a devotional and religious character and constitutes in effect a religious observance. The devotional and religious nature of the morning exercises is made all the more apparent by the fact that the Bible reading is followed immediately by a recital in unison by the pupils of the Lord's Prayer. The fact that some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, might be excused from attendance at the exercises [211] does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the ceremony for . . . Section 1516 . . . unequivocally requires the exercises to be held every school day in every school in the Commonwealth. The exercises are held in the school buildings and perforce are conducted by and under the authority of the local school authorities and during school sessions. Since the statute requires the reading of the `Holy Bible,' a Christian document, the practice . . . prefers the Christian religion. The record demonstrates that it was the intention of . . . the Commonwealth . . . to introduce a religious ceremony into the public schools of the Commonwealth." 201 F. Supp., at 819.

No. 119. In 1905 the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City adopted a rule pursuant to Art. 77, § 202 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. The rule provided for the holding of opening exercises in the schools of the city, consisting primarily of the "reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord's Prayer." The petitioners, Mrs. Madalyn Murray and her son, William J. Murray III, are both professed atheists. Following unsuccessful attempts to have the respondent school board rescind the rule, this suit was filed for mandamus to compel its rescission and cancellation. It was alleged that William was a student in a public school of the city and Mrs. Murray, his mother, was a taxpayer therein; that it was the practice under the rule to have a reading on each school morning from the King James version of the Bible; that at petitioners' insistence the rule was amended^[5] to permit children to [212] be excused from the exercise on request of the parent and that William had been excused pursuant thereto; that nevertheless the rule as amended was in violation of the petitioners' rights "to freedom of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments" and in violation of "the principle of separation between church and state, contained therein. . . ." The petition particularized the petitioners' atheistic beliefs and stated that the rule, as practiced, violated their rights

"in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority; it pronounces belief in God as the source of all moral and spiritual values, equating these values with religious values, and thereby renders sinister, alien and suspect the beliefs and ideals of your Petitioners, promoting doubt and question of their morality, good citizenship and good faith."

The respondents demurred and the trial court, recognizing that the demurrer admitted all facts well pleaded, sustained it without leave to amend. The Maryland Court of Appeals affirmed, the majority of four justices holding the exercise not in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, with three justices dissenting. 228 Md. 239, 179 A. 2d 698. We granted certiorari. 371 U. S. 809.

II.

It is true that religion has been closely identified with our history and government. As we said in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 434 (1962), "The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And . . . since [213] the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that `More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.' " In Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313 (1952), we gave specific recognition to the proposition that "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." The fact that the Founding Fathers believed devotedly that there was a God and that the unalienable rights of man were rooted in Him is clearly evidenced in their writings, from the Mayflower Compact to the Constitution itself. This background is evidenced today in our public life through the continuance in our oaths of office from the Presidency to the Alderman of the final supplication, "So help me God." Likewise each House of the Congress provides through its Chaplain an opening prayer, and the sessions of this Court are declared open by the crier in a short ceremony, the final phrase of which invokes the grace of God. Again, there are such manifestations in our military forces, where those of our citizens who are under the restrictions of military service wish to engage in voluntary worship. Indeed, only last year an official survey of the country indicated that 64% of our people have church membership, Bureau of the Census, U. S. Department of Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (83d ed. 1962), 48, while less than 3% profess no religion whatever. Id., at p. 46. It can be truly said, therefore, that today, as in the beginning, our national life reflects a religious people who, in the words of Madison, are "earnestly praying, as . . . in duty bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe . . . guide them into every measure which may be worthy of his [blessing . . . .]" Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, quoted in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 71-72 (1947) (Appendix to dissenting opinion of Rutledge, J.).

[214] This is not to say, however, that religion has been so identified with our history and government that religious freedom is not likewise as strongly imbedded in our public and private life. Nothing but the most telling of personal experiences in religious persecution suffered by our forebears, see Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 8-11, could have planted our belief in liberty of religious opinion any more deeply in our heritage. It is true that this liberty frequently was not realized by the colonists, but this is readily accountable by their close ties to the Mother Country.^[6] However, the views of Madison and Jefferson, preceded by Roger Williams,^[7] came to be incorporated not only in the Federal Constitution but likewise in those of most of our States. This freedom to worship was indispensable in a country whose people came from the four quarters of the earth and brought with them a diversity of religious opinion. Today authorities list 83 separate religious bodies, each with membership exceeding 50,000, existing among our people, as well as innumerable smaller groups. Bureau of the Census. op. cit., supra, at 46-47.

III.

Almost a hundred years ago in Minor v. Board of Education of Cincinnati,^[8] Judge Alphonso Taft, father [215] of the revered Chief Justice, in an unpublished opinion stated the ideal of our people as to religious freedom as one of

"absolute equality before the law, of all religious opinions and sects . . . .

.....

"The government is neutral, and, while protecting all, it prefers none, and it disparages none."

Before examining this "neutral" position in which the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment place our Government it is well that we discuss the reach of the Amendment under the cases of this Court.

First, this Court has decisively settled that the First Amendment's mandate that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" has been made wholly applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. Twenty-three years ago in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), this Court, through Mr. Justice Roberts, said:

"The fundamental concept of liberty embodied in that [Fourteenth] Amendment embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment [216] has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. . . ."^[9]

In a series of cases since Cantwell the Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that doctrine, and we do so now. Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 108 (1943); Everson v. Board of Education, supra; Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 210-211 (1948); Zorach v. Clauson, supra; McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961); and Engel v. Vitale, supra.

Second, this Court has rejected unequivocally the contention that the Establishment Clause forbids only governmental preference of one religion over another. Almost 20 years ago in Everson, supra, at 15, the Court said that "[n]either a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another." And Mr. Justice Jackson, dissenting, agreed:

"There is no answer to the proposition . . . that the effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. . . . This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity." Id., at 26.

[217] Further, Mr. Justice Rutledge, joined by Justices Frankfurter, Jackson and Burton, declared:

"The [First] Amendment's purpose was not to strike merely at the official establishment of a single sect, creed or religion, outlawing only a formal relation such as had prevailed in England and some of the colonies. Necessarily it was to uproot all such relationships. But the object was broader than separating church and state in this narrow sense. It was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion." Id., at 31-32.

The same conclusion has been firmly maintained ever since that time, see Illinois ex rel. McCollum, supra, at pp. 210-211; McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442-443; Torcaso v. Watkins, supra, at 492-493, 495, and we reaffirm it now.

While none of the parties to either of these cases has questioned these basic conclusions of the Court, both of which have been long established, recognized and consistently reaffirmed, others continue to question their history, logic and efficacy. Such contentions, in the light of the consistent interpretation in cases of this Court, seem entirely untenable and of value only as academic exercises.

IV.

The interrelationship of the Establishment and the Free Exercise Clauses was first touched upon by Mr. Justice Roberts for the Court in Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 303-304, where it was said that their "inhibition of legislation" had

"a double aspect. On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of [218] conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts,—freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be."

A half dozen years later in Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 14-15, this Court, through MR. JUSTICE BLACK, stated that the "scope of the First Amendment. . . was designed forever to suppress" the establishment of religion or the prohibition of the free exercise thereof. In short, the Court held that the Amendment

"requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them." Id., at 18.

And Mr. Justice Jackson, in dissent, declared that public schools are organized

"on the premise that secular education can be isolated from all religious teaching so that the school can inculcate all needed temporal knowledge and also maintain a strict and lofty neutrality as to religion. The assumption is that after the individual has been instructed in worldly wisdom he will be better fitted to choose his religion." Id., at 23-24.

Moreover, all of the four dissenters, speaking through Mr. Justice Rutledge, agreed that

"Our constitutional policy . . . does not deny the value or the necessity for religious training, teaching or observance. Rather it secures their free exercise. But to that end it does deny that the state can undertake or sustain them in any form or degree. For this [219] reason the sphere of religious activity, as distinguished from the secular intellectual liberties, has been given the twofold protection and, as the state cannot forbid, neither can it perform or aid in performing the religious function. The dual prohibition makes that function altogether private." Id., at 52.

Only one year later the Court was asked to reconsider and repudiate the doctrine of these cases in McCollum v. Board of Education. It was argued that "historically the First Amendment was intended to forbid only government preference of one religion over another . . . . In addition they ask that we distinguish or overrule our holding in the Everson case that the Fourteenth Amendment made the `establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment applicable as a prohibition against the States." 333 U. S., at 211. The Court, with Mr. Justice Reed alone dissenting, was unable to "accept either of these contentions." Ibid. Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joined by Justices Jackson, Rutledge and Burton, wrote a very comprehensive and scholarly concurrence in which he said that "[s]eparation is a requirement to abstain from fusing functions of Government and of religious sects, not merely to treat them all equally." Id., at 227. Continuing, he stated that:

"the Constitution . . . prohibited the Government common to all from becoming embroiled, however innocently, in the destructive religious conflicts of which the history of even this country records some dark pages." Id., at 228.

In 1952 in Zorach v. Clauson, supra, MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS for the Court reiterated:

"There cannot be the slightest doubt that the First Amendment reflects the philosophy that Church and State should be separated. And so far as interference with the `free exercise' of religion and an [220] `establishment' of religion are concerned, the separation must be complete and unequivocal. The First Amendment within the scope of its coverage permits no exception; the prohibition is absolute. The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter." 343 U. S., at 312.

And then in 1961 in McGowan v. Maryland and in Torcaso v. Watkins each of these cases was discussed and approved. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN in McGowan, for a unanimous Court on this point, said:

"But, the First Amendment, in its final form, did not simply bar a congressional enactment establishing a church; it forbade all laws respecting an establishment of religion. Thus, this Court has given the Amendment a `broad interpretation . . . in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress. . . .' " 366 U. S., at 441-442.

And MR. JUSTICE BLACK for the Court in Torcaso, without dissent but with Justices Frankfurter and HARLAN concurring in the result, used this language:

"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person `to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.' Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs." 367 U. S., at 495.

Finally, in Engel v. Vitale, only last year, these principles were so universally recognized that the Court, without [221] the citation of a single case and over the sole dissent of MR. JUSTICE STEWART, reaffirmed them. The Court found the 22-word prayer used in "New York's program of daily classroom invocation of God's blessings as prescribed in the Regents' prayer . . . [to be] a religious activity." 370 U. S., at 424. It held that "it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government." Id., at 425. In discussing the reach of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment the Court said:

"Although these two clauses may in certain instances overlap, they forbid two quite different kinds of governmental encroachment upon religious freedom. The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce non-observing individuals or not. This is not to say, of course, that laws officially prescribing a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of such individuals. When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain." Id., at 430-431.

And in further elaboration the Court found that the "first and most immediate purpose [of the Establishment Clause] rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion." Id., at 431. When government, the Court said, allies itself with one particular form of religion, the [222] inevitable result is that it incurs "the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs." Ibid.

V.

The wholesome "neutrality" of which this Court's cases speak thus stems from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. And a further reason for neutrality is found in the Free Exercise Clause, which recognizes the value of religious training, teaching and observance and, more particularly, the right of every person to freely choose his own course with reference thereto, free of any compulsion from the state. This the Free Exercise Clause guarantees. Thus, as we have seen, the two clauses may overlap. As we have indicated, the Establishment Clause has been directly considered by this Court eight times in the past score of years and, with only one Justice dissenting on the point, it has consistently held that the clause withdrew all legislative power respecting religious belief or the expression thereof. The test may be stated as follows: what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Everson v. Board of Education, supra; McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442. The Free Exercise Clause, likewise considered many times here, withdraws from legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free exercise [223] of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority. Hence it is necessary in a free exercise case for one to show the coercive effect of the enactment as it operates against him in the practice of his religion. The distinction between the two clauses is apparent—a violation of the Free Exercise Clause is predicated on coercion while the Establishment Clause violation need not be so attended.

Applying the Establishment Clause principles to the cases at bar we find that the States are requiring the selection and reading at the opening of the school day of verses from the Holy Bible and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the students in unison. These exercises are prescribed as part of the curricular activities of students who are required by law to attend school. They are held in the school buildings under the supervision and with the participation of teachers employed in those schools. None of these factors, other than compulsory school attendance, was present in the program upheld in Zorach v. Clauson. The trial court in No. 142 has found that such an opening exercise is a religious ceremony and was intended by the State to be so. We agree with the trial court's finding as to the religious character of the exercises. Given that finding, the exercises and the law requiring them are in violation of the Establishment Clause.

There is no such specific finding as to the religious character of the exercises in No. 119, and the State contends (as does the State in No. 142) that the program is an effort to extend its benefits to all public school children without regard to their religious belief. Included within its secular purposes, it says, are the promotion of moral values, the contradiction to the materialistic trends of our times, the perpetuation of our institutions and the teaching of literature. The case came up [224] on demurrer, of course, to a petition which alleged that the uniform practice under the rule had been to read from the King James version of the Bible and that the exercise was sectarian. The short answer, therefore, is that the religious character of the exercise was admitted by the State. But even if its purpose is not strictly religious, it is sought to be accomplished through readings, without comment, from the Bible. Surely the place of the Bible as an instrument of religion cannot be gainsaid, and the State's recognition of the pervading religious character of the ceremony is evident from the rule's specific permission of the alternative use of the Catholic Douay version as well as the recent amendment permitting nonattendance at the exercises. None of these factors is consistent with the contention that the Bible is here used either as an instrument for nonreligious moral inspiration or as a reference for the teaching of secular subjects.

The conclusion follows that in both cases the laws require religious exercises and such exercises are being conducted in direct violation of the rights of the appellees and petitioners.^[10] Nor are these required exercises mitigated by the fact that individual students may absent [225] themselves upon parental request, for that fact furnishes no defense to a claim of unconstitutionality under the Establishment Clause. See Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 430. Further, it is no defense to urge that the religious practices here may be relatively minor encroachments on the First Amendment. The breach of neutrality that is today a trickling stream may all too soon become a raging torrent and, in the words of Madison, "it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties." Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, quoted in Everson, supra, at 65.

It is insisted that unless these religious exercises are permitted a "religion of secularism" is established in the schools. We agree of course that the State may not establish a "religion of secularism" in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus "preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe." Zorach v. Clauson, supra, at 314. We do not agree, however, that this decision in any sense has that effect. In addition, it might well be said that one's education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment. But the exercises here do not fall into those categories. They are religious exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion.

Finally, we cannot accept that the concept of neutrality, which does not permit a State to require a religious exercise even with the consent of the majority of those [226] affected, collides with the majority's right to free exercise of religion.^[11] While the Free Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of state action to deny the rights of free exercise to anyone, it has never meant that a majority could use the machinery of the State to practice its beliefs. Such a contention was effectively answered by Mr. Justice Jackson for the Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 638 (1943):

"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to . . . freedom of worship . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections."

The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly committed to a position of neutrality. Though the application of that rule requires interpretation of a delicate sort, the rule itself is clearly and concisely stated in the words of the First Amendment. Applying that rule to the facts of these cases, we affirm the judgment in No. 142. [227] In No. 119, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the Maryland Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

I join the opinion of the Court and add a few words in explanation.

While the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment is written in terms of what the State may not require of the individual, the Establishment Clause, serving the same goal of individual religious freedom, is written in different terms.

Establishment of a religion can be achieved in several ways. The church and state can be one; the church may control the state or the state may control the church; or the relationship may take one of several possible forms of a working arrangement between the two bodies.^[12] Under all of these arrangements the church typically has a place in the state's budget, and church law usually governs such matters as baptism, marriage, divorce and separation, at least for its members and sometimes for the entire body politic.^[13] Education too, is usually high on the priority [228] list of church interests.^[14] In the past schools were often made the exclusive responsibility of the church. Today in some state-church countries the state runs the public schools, but compulsory religious exercises are often required of some or all students. Thus, under the agreement Franco made with the Holy See when he came to power in Spain, "The Church regained its place in the national budget. It insists on baptizing all children and has made the catechism obligatory in state schools."^[15]

The vice of all such arrangements under the Establishment Clause is that the state is lending its assistance to a church's efforts to gain and keep adherents. Under the First Amendment it is strictly a matter for the individual and his church as to what church he will belong to and how much support, in the way of belief, time, activity or money, he will give to it. "This pure Religious Liberty" "declared . . . [all forms of church-state relationships] and their fundamental idea to be oppressions of conscience and abridgments of that liberty which God and nature had conferred on every living soul."^[16]

In these cases we have no coercive religious exercise aimed at making the students conform. The prayers announced are not compulsory, though some may think they have that indirect effect because the nonconformist student may be induced to participate for fear of being called an "oddball." But that coercion, if it be present, [229] has not been shown; so the vices of the present regimes are different.

These regimes violate the Establishment Clause in two different ways. In each case the State is conducting a religious exercise; and, as the Court holds, that cannot be done without violating the "neutrality" required of the State by the balance of power between individual, church and state that has been struck by the First Amendment. But the Establishment Clause is not limited to precluding the State itself from conducting religious exercises. It also forbids the State to employ its facilities or funds in a way that gives any church, or all churches, greater strength in our society than it would have by relying on its members alone. Thus, the present regimes must fall under that clause for the additional reason that public funds, though small in amount, are being used to promote a religious exercise. Through the mechanism of the State, all of the people are being required to finance a religious exercise that only some of the people want and that violates the sensibilities of others.

The most effective way to establish any institution is to finance it; and this truth is reflected in the appeals by church groups for public funds to finance their religious schools.^[17] Financing a church either in its strictly religious activities or in its other activities is equally unconstitutional, as I understand the Establishment Clause. Budgets for one activity may be technically separable from budgets for others.^[18] But the institution is an inseparable whole, a living organism, which is strengthened in proselytizing when it is strengthened in any department by contributions from other than its own members.

[230] Such contributions may not be made by the State even in a minor degree without violating the Establishment Clause. It is not the amount of public funds expended; as this case illustrates, it is the use to which public funds are put that is controlling. For the First Amendment does not say that some forms of establishment are allowed; it says that "no law respecting an establishment of religion" shall be made. What may not be done directly may not be done indirectly lest the Establishment Clause become a mockery.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring.

Almost a century and a half ago, John Marshall, in M'Culloch v. Maryland, enjoined: ". . . we must never forget, that it is a constitution we are expounding." 4 Wheat. 316, 407. The Court's historic duty to expound the meaning of the Constitution has encountered few issues more intricate or more demanding than that of the relationship between religion and the public schools. Since undoubtedly we are "a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being," Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313, deep feelings are aroused when aspects of that relationship are claimed to violate the injunction of the First Amendment that government may make "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." Americans regard the public schools as a most vital civic institution for the preservation of a democratic system of government. It is therefore understandable that the constitutional prohibitions encounter their severest test when they are sought to be applied in the school classroom. Nevertheless it is this Court's inescapable duty to declare whether exercises in the public schools of the States, such as those of Pennsylvania and Maryland questioned here, are involvements of religion in public institutions of a kind which offends the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

[231] When John Locke ventured in 1689, "I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other,"^[19] he anticipated the necessity which would be thought by the Framers to require adoption of a First Amendment, but not the difficulty that would be experienced in defining those "just bounds." The fact is that the line which separates the secular from the sectarian in American life is elusive. The difficulty of defining the boundary with precision inheres in a paradox central to our scheme of liberty. While our institutions reflect a firm conviction that we are a religious people, those institutions by solemn constitutional injunction may not officially involve religion in such a way as to prefer, discriminate against, or oppress, a particular sect or religion. Equally the Constitution enjoins those involvements of religious with secular institutions which (a) serve the essentially religious activities of religious institutions; (b) employ the organs of government for essentially religious purposes; or (c) use essentially religious means to serve governmental ends where secular means would suffice. The constitutional mandate expresses a deliberate and considered judgment that such matters are to be left to the conscience of the citizen, and declares as a basic postulate of the relation between the citizen and his government that "the rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand . . . ."^[20]

I join fully in the opinion and the judgment of the Court. I see no escape from the conclusion that the exercises [232] called in question in these two cases violate the constitutional mandate. The reasons we gave only last Term in Engle v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, for finding in the New York Regents' prayer an impermissible establishment of religion, compel the same judgment of the practices at bar. The involvement of the secular with the religious is no less intimate here; and it is constitutionally irrelevant that the State has not composed the material for the inspirational exercises presently involved. It should be unnecessary to observe that our holding does not declare that the First Amendment manifests hostility to the practice or teaching of religion, but only applies prohibitions incorporated in the Bill of Rights in recognition of historic needs shared by Church and State alike. While it is my view that not every involvement of religion in public life is unconstitutional, I consider the exercises at bar a form of involvement which clearly violates the Establishment Clause.

The importance of the issue and the deep conviction with which views on both sides are held seem to me to justify detailing at some length my reasons for joining the Court's judgment and opinion.

I.

The First Amendment forbids both the abridgment of the free exercise of religion and the enactment of laws "respecting an establishment of religion." The two clauses, although distinct in their objectives and their applicability, emerged together from a common panorama of history. The inclusion of both restraints upon the power of Congress to legislate concerning religious matters shows unmistakably that the Framers of the First Amendment were not content to rest the protection of religious liberty exclusively upon either clause. "In assuring the free exercise of religion," Mr. Justice Frankfurter has said, [233] "the Framers of the First Amendment were sensitive to the then recent history of those persecutions and impositions of civil disability with which sectarian majorities in virtually all of the Colonies had visited deviation in the matter of conscience. This protection of unpopular creeds, however, was not to be the full extent of the Amendment's guarantee of freedom from governmental intrusion in matters of faith. The battle in Virginia, hardly four years won, where James Madison had led the forces of disestablishment in successful opposition to Patrick Henry's proposed Assessment Bill levying a general tax for the support of Christian teachers, was a vital and compelling memory in 1789." McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 464-465.

It is true that the Framers' immediate concern was to prevent the setting up of an official federal church of the kind which England and some of the Colonies had long supported. But nothing in the text of the Establishment Clause supports the view that the prevention of the setting up of an official church was meant to be the full extent of the prohibitions against official involvements in religion. It has rightly been said:

"If the framers of the Amendment meant to prohibit Congress merely from the establishment of a `church,' one may properly wonder why they didn't so state. That the words church and religion were regarded as synonymous seems highly improbable, particularly in view of the fact that the contemporary state constitutional provisions dealing with the subject of establishment used definite phrases such as `religious sect,' `sect,' or `denomination.'. . . With such specific wording in contemporary state constitutions, why was not a similar wording adopted for the First Amendment if its framers intended to prohibit nothing more than what the States were prohibiting?" [234] Lardner, How Far Does the Constitution Separate Church and State? 45 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 110, 112 (1951).

Plainly, the Establishment Clause, in the contemplation of the Framers, "did not limit the constitutional proscription to any particular, dated form of state-supported theological venture." "What Virginia had long practiced, and what Madison, Jefferson and others fought to end, was the extension of civil government's support to religion in a manner which made the two in some degree interdependent, and thus threatened the freedom of each. The purpose of the Establishment Clause was to assure that the national legislature would not exert its power in the service of any purely religious end; that it would not, as Virginia and virtually all of the Colonies had done, make of religion, as religion, an object of legislation. . . . The Establishment Clause withdrew from the sphere of legitimate legislative concern and competence a specific, but comprehensive, area of human conduct: man's belief or disbelief in the verity of some transcendental idea and man's expression in action of that belief or disbelief." McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 465-466 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).

In sum, the history which our prior decisions have summoned to aid interpretation of the Establishment Clause permits little doubt that its prohibition was designed comprehensively to prevent those official involvements of religion which would tend to foster or discourage religious worship or belief.

But an awareness of history and an appreciation of the aims of the Founding Fathers do not always resolve concrete problems. The specific question before us has, for example, aroused vigorous dispute whether the architects of the First Amendment—James Madison and Thomas Jefferson particularly—understood the prohibition against any "law respecting an establishment of [235] religion" to reach devotional exercises in the public schools.^[21] It may be that Jefferson and Madison would have held such exercises to be permissible—although even in Jefferson's case serious doubt is suggested by his admonition against "putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries . . . ."^[22] But [236] I doubt that their view, even if perfectly clear one way or the other, would supply a dispositive answer to the question presented by these cases. A more fruitful inquiry, it seems to me, is whether the practices here challenged threaten those consequences which the Framers deeply feared; whether, in short, they tend to promote that type of interdependence between religion and state which the First Amendment was designed to prevent.^[23] Our task is to translate "the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials [237] dealing with the problems of the twentieth century . . . ." West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 639.

A too literal quest for the advice of the Founding Fathers upon the issues of these cases seems to me futile and misdirected for several reasons: First, on our precise problem the historical record is at best ambiguous, and statements can readily be found to support either side of the proposition. The ambiguity of history is understandable if we recall the nature of the problems uppermost in the thinking of the statesmen who fashioned the religious guarantees; they were concerned with far more flagrant intrusions of government into the realm of religion than any that our century has witnessed.^[24] While it is clear to me that the Framers meant the Establishment Clause to prohibit more than the creation of an established federal church such as existed in England, I have no doubt that, in their preoccupation with the imminent question of established churches, they gave no distinct [238] consideration to the particular question whether the clause also forbade devotional exercises in public institutions.

Second, the structure of American education has greatly changed since the First Amendment was adopted. In the context of our modern emphasis upon public education available to all citizens, any views of the eighteenth century as to whether the exercises at bar are an "establishment" offer little aid to decision. Education, as the Framers knew it, was in the main confined to private schools more often than not under strictly sectarian supervision. Only gradually did control of education pass largely to public officials.^[25] It would, therefore, [239] hardly be significant if the fact was that the nearly universal devotional exercises in the schools of the young Republic did not provoke criticism; even today religious ceremonies in church-supported private schools are constitutionally unobjectionable.

[240] Third, our religious composition makes us a vastly more diverse people than were our forefathers. They knew differences chiefly among Protestant sects. Today the Nation is far more heterogeneous religiously, including as it does substantial minorities not only of Catholics and Jews but as well of those who worship according to no version of the Bible and those who worship no God at all.^[26] [241] See Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 495. In the face of such profound changes, practices which may have been objectionable to no one in the time of Jefferson and Madison may today be highly offensive to many persons, the deeply devout and the nonbelievers alike.

Whatever Jefferson or Madison would have thought of Bible reading or the recital of the Lord's Prayer in what few public schools existed in their day, our use of the history of their time must limit itself to broad purposes, not specific practices. By such a standard, I am persuaded, as is the Court, that the devotional exercises carried on in the Baltimore and Abington schools offend the First Amendment because they sufficiently threaten in our day those substantive evils the fear of which called forth the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is "a constitution we are expounding," and our interpretation of the First Amendment must necessarily be responsive to the much more highly charged nature of religious questions in contemporary society.

Fourth, the American experiment in free public education available to all children has been guided in large measure by the dramatic evolution of the religious diversity among the population which our public schools serve. The interaction of these two important forces in our national life has placed in bold relief certain positive values in the consistent application to public institutions generally, and public schools particularly, of the constitutional decree against official involvements of religion which might produce the evils the Framers meant the Establishment Clause to forestall. The public schools are supported entirely, in most communities, by public funds—funds exacted not only from parents, nor alone from those who hold particular religious views, nor indeed from those who subscribe to any creed at all. It is implicit in the history and character of American public education that the public schools serve a uniquely [242] public function: the training of American citizens in an atmosphere free of parochial, divisive, or separatist influences of any sort—an atmosphere in which children may assimilate a heritage common to all American groups and religions. See Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203. This is a heritage neither theistic nor atheistic, but simply civic and patriotic. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 400-403.

Attendance at the public schools has never been compulsory; parents remain morally and constitutionally free to choose the academic environment in which they wish their children to be educated. The relationship of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the public school system is preeminently that of reserving such a choice to the individual parent, rather than vesting it in the majority of voters of each State or school district. The choice which is thus preserved is between a public secular education with its uniquely democratic values, and some form of private or sectarian education, which offers values of its own. In my judgment the First Amendment forbids the State to inhibit that freedom of choice by diminishing the attractiveness of either alternative—either by restricting the liberty of the private schools to inculcate whatever values they wish, or by jeopardizing the freedom of the public schools from private or sectarian pressures. The choice between these very different forms of education is one—very much like the choice of whether or not to worship—which our Constitution leaves to the individual parent. It is no proper function of the state or local government to influence or restrict that election. The lesson of history— drawn more from the experiences of other countries than from our own—is that a system of free public education forfeits its unique contribution to the growth of democratic citizenship when that choice ceases to be freely available to each parent.

[243] II.

The exposition by this Court of the religious guarantees of the First Amendment has consistently reflected and reaffirmed the concerns which impelled the Framers to write those guarantees into the Constitution. It would be neither possible nor appropriate to review here the entire course of our decisions on religious questions. There emerge from those decisions, however, three principles of particular relevance to the issue presented by the cases at bar, and some attention to those decisions is therefore appropriate.

First. One line of decisions derives from contests for control of a church property or other internal ecclesiastical disputes. This line has settled the proposition that in order to give effect to the First Amendment's purpose of requiring on the part of all organs of government a strict neutrality toward theological questions, courts should not undertake to decide such questions. These principles were first expounded in the case of Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, which declared that judicial intervention in such a controversy would open up "the whole subject of the doctrinal theology, the usages and customs, the written laws, and fundamental organization of every religious denomination . . . ." 13 Wall., at 733. Courts above all must be neutral, for "[t]he law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect."^[27] 13 Wall., at 728. This principle has recently [244] been reaffirmed in Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U. S. 94; and Kreshik v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 363 U. S. 190.

The mandate of judicial neutrality in theological controversies met its severest test in United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78. That decision put in sharp relief certain principles which bear directly upon the questions presented in these cases. Ballard was indicted for fraudulent use of the mails in the dissemination of religious literature. He requested that the trial court submit to the jury the question of the truthfulness of the religious views he championed. The requested charge was refused, and we upheld that refusal, reasoning that the First Amendment foreclosed any judicial inquiry into the truth or falsity of the defendant's religious beliefs. We said: "Man's relation to his God was made no concern of the state. He was granted the right to worship as he pleased and to answer to no man for the verity of his religious views." "Men may believe what they cannot [245] prove. They may not be put to the proof of their religious doctrines or beliefs. . . . Many take their gospel from the New Testament. But it would hardly be supposed that they could be tried before a jury charged with the duty of determining whether those teachings contained false representations." 322 U.S., at 86-87.

The dilemma presented by the case was severe. While the alleged truthfulness of nonreligious publications could ordinarily have been submitted to the jury, Ballard was deprived of that defense only because the First Amendment forbids governmental inquiry into the verity of religious beliefs. In dissent Mr. Justice Jackson expressed the concern that under this construction of the First Amendment "[p]rosecutions of this character easily could degenerate into religious persecution." 322 U. S., at 95. The case shows how elusive is the line which enforces the Amendment's injunction of strict neutrality, while manifesting no official hostility toward religion— a line which must be considered in the cases now before us.^[28] Some might view the result of the Ballard case as a manifestation of hostility—in that the conviction stood because the defense could not be raised. To others it [246] might represent merely strict adherence to the principle of neutrality already expounded in the cases involving doctrinal disputes. Inevitably, insistence upon neutrality, vital as it surely is for untrammeled religious liberty, may appear to border upon religious hostility. But in the long view the independence of both church and state in their respective spheres will be better served by close adherence to the neutrality principle. If the choice is often difficult, the difficulty is endemic to issues implicating the religious guarantees of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion will be seriously jeopardized if we admit exceptions for no better reason than the difficulty of delineating hostility from neutrality in the closest cases.

Second. It is only recently that our decisions have dealt with the question whether issues arising under the Establishment Clause may be isolated from problems implicating the Free Exercise Clause. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, is in my view the first of our decisions which treats a problem of asserted unconstitutional involvement as raising questions purely under the Establishment Clause. A scrutiny of several earlier decisions said by some to have etched the contours of the clause shows that such cases neither raised nor decided any constitutional issues under the First Amendment. Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291, for example, involved challenges to a federal grant to a hospital administered by a Roman Catholic order. The Court rejected the claim for lack of evidence that any sectarian influence changed its character as a secular institution chartered as such by the Congress.^[29]

Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U. S. 50, is also illustrative. The immediate question there was one of statutory construction, although the issue had originally involved the [247] constitutionality of the use of federal funds to support sectarian education on Indian reservations. Congress had already prohibited federal grants for that purpose, thereby removing the broader issue, leaving only the question whether the statute authorized the appropriation for religious teaching of Treaty funds held by the Government in trust for the Indians. Since these were the Indians' own funds, the Court held only that the Indians might direct their use for such educational purposes as they chose, and that the administration by the Treasury of the disbursement of the funds did not inject into the case any issue of the propriety of the use of federal moneys.^[30] Indeed, the Court expressly approved the reasoning of the Court of Appeals that to deny the Indians the right to spend their own moneys for religious purposes of their choice might well infringe the free exercise of their religion: "it seems inconceivable that Congress should have intended to prohibit them from receiving religious education at their own cost if they so desired it . . . ." 210 U. S., at 82. This case forecast, however, an increasingly troublesome First Amendment paradox: that the logical interrelationship between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses may produce situations where an injunction against an apparent establishment must be withheld in order to avoid infringement of rights of free exercise. That paradox was not squarely presented in Quick Bear, but the care taken by the Court [248] to avoid a constitutional confrontation discloses an awareness of possible conflicts between the two clauses. I shall come back to this problem later, infra, pp. 296-299.

A third case in this group is Cochran v. Louisiana State Board, 281 U. S. 370, which involved a challenge to a state statute providing public funds to support a loan of free textbooks to pupils of both public and private schools. The constitutional issues in this Court extended no further than the claim that this program amounted to a taking of private property for nonpublic use. The Court rejected the claim on the ground that no private use of property was involved; ". . . we can not doubt that the taxing power of the State is exerted for a public purpose." 281 U. S., at 375. The case therefore raised no issue under the First Amendment.^[31]

In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, a Catholic parochial school and a private but nonsectarian military academy challenged a state law requiring all children between certain ages to attend the public schools. This Court held the law invalid as an arbitrary and unreasonable interference both with the rights of the schools and with the liberty of the parents of the children who attended them. The due process guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment "excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only." 268 U. S., at 535. While one of the plaintiffs was indeed a parochial school, the case obviously decided no First Amendment question but recognized only the constitutional right to establish and patronize private schools—including parochial schools—which meet the state's reasonable minimum curricular requirements.

[249] Third. It is true, as the Court says, that the "two clauses [Establishment and Free Exercise] may overlap." Because of the overlap, however, our decisions under the Free Exercise Clause bear considerable relevance to the problem now before us, and should be briefly reviewed. The early free exercise cases generally involved the objections of religious minorities to the application to them of general nonreligious legislation governing conduct. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, involved the claim that a belief in the sanctity of plural marriage precluded the conviction of members of a particular sect under nondiscriminatory legislation against such marriage. The Court rejected the claim, saying:

"Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances."^[32] 98 U. S., at 166-167.

[250] Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, similarly involved the claim that the First Amendment insulated from civil punishment certain practices inspired or motivated by religious beliefs. The claim was easily rejected: "It was never intended or supposed that the amendment could be invoked as a protection against legislation for the punishment of acts inimical to the peace, good order and morals of society." 133 U. S., at 342. See also Mormon Church v. United States, 136 U. S. 1; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158; Cleveland v. United States, 329 U. S. 14.

But we must not confuse the issue of governmental power to regulate or prohibit conduct motivated by religious beliefs with the quite different problem of governmental authority to compel behavior offensive to religious principles. In Hamilton v. Regents of the University of California, 293 U. S. 245, the question was that of the power of a State to compel students at the State University to participate in military training instruction against their religious convictions. The validity of the statute was sustained against claims based upon the First Amendment. But the decision rested on a very narrow principle: since there was neither a constitutional right nor a legal obligation to attend the State University, the obligation to participate in military training courses, [251] reflecting a legitimate state interest, might properly be imposed upon those who chose to attend. Although the rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments were presumed to include "the right to entertain the beliefs, to adhere to the principles and to teach the doctrines on which these students base their objections to the order prescribing military training," those Amendments were construed not to free such students from the military training obligations if they chose to attend the University. Justices Brandeis, Cardozo and Stone, concurring separately, agreed that the requirement infringed no constitutionally protected liberties. They added, however, that the case presented no question under the Establishment Clause. The military instruction program was not an establishment since it in no way involved "instruction in the practice or tenets of a religion." 293 U. S., at 266. Since the only question was one of free exercise, they concluded, like the majority, that the strong state interest in training a citizen militia justified the restraints imposed, at least so long as attendance at the University was voluntary.^[33]

Hamilton has not been overruled, although United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, and United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, upon which the Court in Hamilton relied, have since been overruled by Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61. But if Hamilton retains any vitality with respect to higher education, we recognized its inapplicability to cognate questions in the public primary and secondary schools when we held in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, supra, that a State had no power to expel from public schools students who refused on religious grounds to comply with a daily flag [252] salute requirement. Of course, such a requirement was no more a law "respecting an establishment of religion" than the California law compelling the college students to take military training. The Barnette plaintiffs, moreover, did not ask that the whole exercise be enjoined, but only that an excuse or exemption be provided for those students whose religious beliefs forbade them to participate in the ceremony. The key to the holding that such a requirement abridged rights of free exercise lay in the fact that attendance at school was not voluntary but compulsory. The Court said:

"This issue is not prejudiced by the Court's previous holding that where a State, without compelling attendance, extends college facilities to pupils who voluntarily enroll, it may prescribe military training as part of the course without offense to the Constitution.. . . Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245. In the present case attendance is not optional." 319 U. S., at 631-632.

The Barnette decision made another significant point. The Court held that the State must make participation in the exercise voluntary for all students and not alone for those who found participation obnoxious on religious grounds. In short, there was simply no need to "inquire whether non-conformist beliefs will exempt from the duty to salute" because the Court found no state "power to make the salute a legal duty." 319 U. S., at 635.

The distinctions between Hamilton and Barnette are, I think, crucial to the resolution of the cases before us. The different results of those cases are attributable only in part to a difference in the strength of the particular state interests which the respective statutes were designed to serve. Far more significant is the fact that Hamilton dealt with the voluntary attendance at college of young adults, while Barnette involved the compelled attendance [253] of young children at elementary and secondary schools.^[34] This distinction warrants a difference in constitutional results. And it is with the involuntary attendance of young school children that we are exclusively concerned in the cases now before the Court.

III.

No one questions that the Framers of the First Amendment intended to restrict exclusively the powers of the Federal Government.^[35] Whatever limitations that Amendment now imposes upon the States derive from the Fourteenth Amendment. The process of absorption of the religious guarantees of the First Amendment as protections against the States under the Fourteenth Amendment began with the Free Exercise Clause. In 1923 the Court held that the protections of the Fourteenth included at least a person's freedom "to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. . . ."^[36]Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399. See also Hamilton v. Regents, supra, at 262. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, completed in 1940 the process of absorption [254] of the Free Exercise Clause and recognized its dual aspect: the Court affirmed freedom of belief as an absolute liberty, but recognized that conduct, while it may also be comprehended by the Free Exercise Clause, "remains subject to regulation for the protection of society." 310 U. S., at 303-304. This was a distinction already drawn by Reynolds v. United States, supra. From the beginning this Court has recognized that while government may regulate the behavioral manifestations of religious beliefs, it may not interfere at all with the beliefs themselves.

The absorption of the Establishment Clause has, however, come later and by a route less easily charted. It has been suggested, with some support in history, that absorption of the First Amendment's ban against congressional legislation "respecting an establishment of religion" is conceptually impossible because the Framers meant the Establishment Clause also to foreclose any attempt by Congress to disestablish the existing official state churches.^[37] Whether or not such was the understanding of the Framers and whether such a purpose would have inhibited the absorption of the Establishment Clause at the threshold of the Nineteenth Century are questions not dispositive of our present inquiry. For it is [255] clear on the record of history that the last of the formal state establishments was dissolved more than three decades before the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, and thus the problem of protecting official state churches from federal encroachments could hardly have been any concern of those who framed the post-Civil War Amendments.^[38] Any such objective of the First Amendment, having become historical anachronism by 1868, cannot be thought to have deterred the absorption of the Establishment Clause to any greater degree than it would, for example, have deterred the absorption of the Free Exercise Clause. That no organ of the Federal Government possessed in 1791 any power to restrain the interference of the States in religious matters is indisputable. See Permoli v. New Orleans, 3 How. 589. It is equally plain, on the other hand, that the Fourteenth Amendment created a panoply of new federal rights for the protection of citizens of the various States. And among those rights was freedom from such state governmental involvement in the affairs of religion as the Establishment Clause had originally foreclosed on the part of Congress.

[256] It has also been suggested that the "liberty" guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment logically cannot absorb the Establishment Clause because that clause is not one of the provisions of the Bill of Rights which in terms protects a "freedom" of the individual. See Corwin, A Constitution of Powers in a Secular State (1951), 113-116. The fallacy in this contention, I think, is that it underestimates the role of the Establishment Clause as co-guarantor, with the Free Exercise Clause, of religious liberty. The Framers did not entrust the liberty of religious beliefs to either clause alone. The Free Exercise Clause "was not to be the full extent of the Amendment's guarantee of freedom from governmental intrusion in matters of faith." McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 464 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.).

Finally, it has been contended that absorption of the Establishment Clause is precluded by the absence of any intention on the part of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment to circumscribe the residual powers of the States to aid religious activities and institutions in ways which fell short of formal establishments.^[39] That argument relies in part upon the express terms of the [257] abortive Blaine Amendment—proposed several years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment—which would have added to the First Amendment a provision that "[n]o State shall make any law respecting an establishment of religion . . . ." Such a restriction would have been superfluous, it is said, if the Fourteenth Amendment had already made the Establishment Clause binding upon the States.

The argument proves too much, for the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of the free exercise of religion can hardly be questioned; yet the Blaine Amendment would also have added an explicit protection against state laws abridging that liberty.^[40] Even if we assume that the draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment saw no immediate connection between its protections against state action infringing personal liberty and the guarantees of the First Amendment, it is certainly too late in the day to suggest that their assumed inattention to the question dilutes the force of these constitutional guarantees in their application to the States.^[41] It is enough to conclude [258] that the religious liberty embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment would not be viable if the Constitution were interpreted to forbid only establishments ordained by Congress.^[42]

[259] The issue of what particular activities the Establishment Clause forbids the States to undertake is our more immediate concern. In Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16, a careful study of the relevant history led the Court to the view, consistently recognized in decisions since Everson, that the Establishment Clause embodied the Framers' conclusion that government and religion have discrete interests which are mutually best served when each avoids too close a proximity to the other. It is not only the nonbeliever who fears the injection of sectarian doctrines and controversies into the civil polity, but in as high degree it is the devout believer who fears the secularization of a creed which becomes too deeply involved with and dependent upon the government.^[43] It [260] has rightly been said of the history of the Establishment Clause that "our tradition of civil liberty rests not only on the secularism of a Thomas Jefferson but also on the fervent sectarianism . . . of a Roger Williams." Freund, The Supreme Court of the United States (1961), 84.

Our decisions on questions of religious education or exercises in the public schools have consistently reflected this dual aspect of the Establishment Clause. Engel v. Vitale unmistakably has its roots in three earlier cases which, on cognate issues, shaped the contours of the Establishment Clause. First, in Everson the Court held that reimbursement by the town of parents for the cost of transporting their children by public carrier to parochial (as well as public and private nonsectarian) schools did not offend the Establishment Clause. Such reimbursement, by easing the financial burden upon Catholic parents, may indirectly have fostered the operation of the Catholic schools, and may thereby indirectly have facilitated the teaching of Catholic principles, thus serving ultimately a religious goal. But this form of governmental assistance was difficult to distinguish from myriad other incidental if not insignificant government benefits enjoyed by religious institutions—fire and police protection, tax exemptions, and the pavement of streets and sidewalks, for example. "The State contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from [261] accredited schools." 330 U. S., at 18. Yet even this form of assistance was thought by four Justices of the Everson Court to be barred by the Establishment Clause because too perilously close to that public support of religion forbidden by the First Amendment.

The other two cases, Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, and Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, can best be considered together. Both involved programs of released time for religious instruction of public school students. I reject the suggestion that Zorach overruled McCollum in silence.^[44] The distinction which the Court drew in Zorach between the two cases is, in my view, faithful to the function of the Establishment Clause.

I should first note, however, that McCollum and Zorach do not seem to me distinguishable in terms of the free exercise claims advanced in both cases.^[45] The nonparticipant in the McCollum program was given secular instruction in a separate room during the times his classmates had religious lessons; the nonparticipant in any Zorach program also received secular instruction, while his classmates repaired to a place outside the school for religious instruction.

The crucial difference, I think, was that the McCollum program offended the Establishment Clause while the Zorach program did not. This was not, in my view, because of the difference in public expenditures involved. True, the McCollum program involved the regular use of school facilities, classrooms, heat and light and time from the regular school day—even though the actual [262] incremental cost may have been negligible. All religious instruction under the Zorach program, by contrast, was carried on entirely off the school premises, and the teacher's part was simply to facilitate the children's release to the churches. The deeper difference was that the McCollum program placed the religious instructor in the public school classroom in precisely the position of authority held by the regular teachers of secular subjects, while the Zorach program did not.^[46] The McCollum program, [263] in lending to the support of sectarian instruction all the authority of the governmentally operated public school system, brought government and religion into that proximity which the Establishment Clause forbids. To be sure, a religious teacher presumably commands substantial respect and merits attention in his own right. But the Constitution does not permit that prestige and capacity for influence to be augmented by investiture of all the symbols of authority at the command of the lay teacher for the enhancement of secular instruction.

More recent decisions have further etched the contours of Establishment. In the Sunday Law Cases, we found in state laws compelling a uniform day of rest from worldly labor no violation of the Establishment Clause (McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420). The basic [264] ground of our decision was that, granted the Sunday Laws were first enacted for religious ends, they were continued in force for reasons wholly secular, namely, to provide a universal day of rest and ensure the health and tranquillity of the community. In other words, government may originally have decreed a Sunday day of rest for the impermissible purpose of supporting religion but abandoned that purpose and retained the laws for the permissible purpose of furthering overwhelmingly secular ends.

Such was the evolution of the contours of the Establishment Clause before Engel v. Vitale. There, a year ago, we held that the daily recital of the State-composed Regents' Prayer constituted an establishment of religion because, although the prayer itself revealed no sectarian content or purpose, its nature and meaning were quite clearly religious. New York, in authorizing its recitation, had not maintained that distance between the public and the religious sectors commanded by the Establishment Clause when it placed the "power, prestige and financial support of government" behind the prayer. In Engel, as in McCollum, it did not matter that the amount of time and expense allocated to the daily recitation was small so long as the exercise itself was manifestly religious. Nor did it matter that few children had complained of the practice, for the measure of the seriousness of a breach of the Establishment Clause has never been thought to be the number of people who complain of it.

We also held two Terms ago in Torcaso v. Watkins, supra, that a State may not constitutionally require an applicant for the office of Notary Public to swear or affirm that he believes in God. The problem of that case was strikingly similar to the issue presented 18 years before in the flag salute case, West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, supra. In neither case was there any claim of establishment of religion, but only of infringement of [265] the individual's religious liberty—in the one case, that of the nonbeliever who could not attest to a belief in God; in the other, that of the child whose creed forbade him to salute the flag. But Torcaso added a new element not present in Barnette. The Maryland test oath involved an attempt to employ essentially religious (albeit nonsectarian) means to achieve a secular goal to which the means bore no reasonable relationship. No one doubted the State's interest in the integrity of its Notaries Public, but that interest did not warrant the screening of applicants by means of a religious test. The Sunday Law Cases were different in that respect. Even if Sunday Laws retain certain religious vestiges, they are enforced today for essentially secular objectives which cannot be effectively achieved in modern society except by designating Sunday as the universal day of rest. The Court's opinions cited very substantial problems in selecting or enforcing an alternative day of rest. But the teaching of both Torcaso and the Sunday Law Cases is that government may not employ religious means to serve secular interests, however legitimate they may be, at least without the clearest demonstration that nonreligious means will not suffice.^[47]

[266] IV.

I turn now to the cases before us.^[48] The religious nature of the exercises here challenged seems plain. Unless Engel v. Vitale is to be overruled, or we are to engage in wholly disingenuous distinction, we cannot sustain [267] these practices. Daily recital of the Lord's Prayer and the reading of passages of Scripture are quite as clearly breaches of the command of the Establishment Clause as was the daily use of the rather bland Regents' Prayer in the New York public schools. Indeed, I would suppose that, if anything, the Lord's Prayer and the Holy Bible are more clearly sectarian, and the present violations of the First Amendment consequently more serious. But the religious exercises challenged in these cases have a long history. And almost from the beginning, Bible reading and daily prayer in the schools have been the subject of debate, criticism by educators and other public officials, and proscription by courts and legislative councils. At the outset, then, we must carefully canvass both aspects of this history.

The use of prayers and Bible readings at the opening of the school day long antedates the founding of our Republic. The Rules of the New Haven Hopkins Grammar School required in 1684 "[t]hat the Scholars being [268] called together, the Mr. shall every morning begin his work with a short prayer for a blessing on his Laboures and their learning . . . ."^[49] More rigorous was the provision in a 1682 contract with a Dutch schoolmaster in Flatbush, New York:

"When the school begins, one of the children shall read the morning prayer, as it stands in the catechism, and close with the prayer before dinner; in the afternoon it shall begin with the prayer after dinner, and end with the evening prayer. The evening school shall begin with the Lord's prayer, and close by singing a psalm."^[50]

After the Revolution, the new States uniformly continued these long-established practices in the private and the few public grammar schools. The school committee of Boston in 1789, for example, required the city's several schoolmasters "daily to commence the duties of their office by prayer and reading a portion of the Sacred Scriptures . . . ."^[51] That requirement was mirrored throughout the original States, and exemplified the universal practice well into the nineteenth century. As the free public schools gradually supplanted the private academies and sectarian schools between 1800 and 1850, morning devotional exercises were retained with few alterations. Indeed, public pressures upon school administrators in many parts of the country would hardly have condoned abandonment of practices to which a century or more of private religious education had accustomed the American people.^[52] The controversy centered, in [269] fact, principally about the elimination of plainly sectarian practices and textbooks, and led to the eventual substitution of nonsectarian, though still religious, exercises and materials.^[53]

Statutory provision for daily religious exercises is, however, of quite recent origin. At the turn of this century, there was but one State—Massachusetts—which had a law making morning prayer or Bible reading obligatory. Statutes elsewhere either permitted such practices or simply left the question to local option. It was not until after 1910 that 11 more States, within a few years, joined Massachusetts in making one or both exercises compulsory.^[54] The Pennsylvania law with which we are [270] concerned in the Schempp case, for example, took effect in 1913; and even the Rule of the Baltimore School Board involved in the Murray case dates only from 1905. In no State has there ever been a constitutional or statutory prohibition against the recital of prayers or the reading of Scripture, although a number of States have outlawed these practices by judicial decision or administrative order. What is noteworthy about the panoply of state and local regulations from which these cases emerge is the relative recency of the statutory codification of practices which have ancient roots, and the rather small number of States which have ever prescribed compulsory religious exercises in the public schools.

The purposes underlying the adoption and perpetuation of these practices are somewhat complex. It is beyond question that the religious benefits and values realized from daily prayer and Bible reading have usually been considered paramount, and sufficient to justify the continuation of such practices. To Horace Mann, embroiled in an intense controversy over the role of sectarian instruction and textbooks in the Boston public schools, there was little question that the regular use of the Bible—which he thought essentially nonsectarian—would bear fruit in the spiritual enlightenment of his pupils.^[55] A contemporary of Mann's, the Commissioner of Education of a neighboring State, expressed a view which many enlightened educators of that day shared:

"As a textbook of morals the Bible is pre-eminent, and should have a prominent place in our schools, [271] either as a reading book or as a source of appeal and instruction. Sectarianism, indeed, should not be countenanced in the schools; but the Bible is not sectarian . . . . The Scriptures should at least be read at the opening of the school, if no more. Prayer may also be offered with the happiest effects."^[56]

Wisconsin's Superintendent of Public Instruction, writing a few years later in 1858, reflected the attitude of his eastern colleagues, in that he regarded "with special favor the use of the Bible in public schools, as pre-eminently first in importance among text-books for teaching the noblest principles of virtue, morality, patriotism, and good order—love and reverence for God—charity and good will to man."^[57]

Such statements reveal the understanding of educators that the daily religious exercises in the schools served broader goals than compelling formal worship of God or fostering church attendance. The religious aims of the educators who adopted and retained such exercises were comprehensive, and in many cases quite devoid of sectarian bias—but the crucial fact is that they were nonetheless religious. While it has been suggested, see pp. 278-281, infra, that daily prayer and reading of Scripture now serve secular goals as well, there can be no doubt that the origins of these practices were unambiguously religious, even where the educator's aim was not to win adherents to a particular creed or faith.

Almost from the beginning religious exercises in the public schools have been the subject of intense criticism, vigorous debate, and judicial or administrative prohibition. Significantly, educators and school boards [272] early entertained doubts about both the legality and the soundness of opening the school day with compulsory prayer or Bible reading. Particularly in the large Eastern cities, where immigration had exposed the public schools to religious diversities and conflicts unknown to the homogeneous academies of the eighteenth century, local authorities found it necessary even before the Civil War to seek an accommodation. In 1843, the Philadelphia School Board adopted the following resolutions:

"RESOLVED, that no children be required to attend or unite in the reading of the Bible in the Public Schools, whose parents are conscientiously opposed thereto:

"RESOLVED, that those children whose parents conscientiously prefer and desire any particular version of the Bible, without note or comment, be furnished with same."^[58]

A decade later, the Superintendent of Schools of New York State issued an even bolder decree that prayers could no longer be required as part of public school activities, and that where the King James Bible was read, Catholic students could not be compelled to attend.^[59] This type of accommodation was not restricted to the East Coast; the Cincinnati Board of Education resolved in 1869 that "religious instruction and the reading of religious books, including the Holy Bible, are prohibited in the common schools of Cincinnati, it being the true object and intent of this rule to allow the children of the parents of all sects and opinions, in matters of faith and worship, [273] to enjoy alike the benefit of the common-school fund."^[60] The Board repealed at the same time an earlier regulation which had required the singing of hymns and psalms to accompany the Bible reading at the start of the school day. And in 1889, one commentator ventured the view that "[t]here is not enough to be gained from Bible reading to justify the quarrel that has been raised over it."^[61]

Thus a great deal of controversy over religion in the public schools had preceded the debate over the Blaine Amendment, precipitated by President Grant's insistence that matters of religion should be left "to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions."^[62] There was ample precedent, too, for Theodore Roosevelt's declaration that in the interest of "absolutely nonsectarian public schools" it was "not our business to have the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Vulgate or the Talmud read in those schools."^[63] The same principle appeared in the message of an Ohio Governor who vetoed a compulsory Bible-reading bill in 1925:

"It is my belief that religious teaching in our homes, Sunday schools, churches, by the good [274] mothers, fathers, and ministers of Ohio is far preferable to compulsory teaching of religion by the state. The spirit of our federal and state constitutions from the beginning . . . [has] been to leave religious instruction to the discretion of parents."^[64]

The same theme has recurred in the opinions of the Attorneys General of several States holding religious exercises or instruction to be in violation of the state or federal constitutional command of separation of church and state.^[65] Thus the basic principle upon which our decision last year in Engel v. Vitale necessarily rested, and which we reaffirm today, can hardly be thought to be radical or novel.

Particularly relevant for our purposes are the decisions of the state courts on questions of religion in the public schools. Those decisions, while not, of course, authoritative in this Court, serve nevertheless to define the problem before us and to guide our inquiry. With the growth of religious diversity and the rise of vigorous dissent it was inevitable that the courts would be called upon to enjoin religious practices in the public schools which offended certain sects and groups. The earliest of such decisions declined to review the propriety of actions taken by school authorities, so long as those actions were within [275] the purview of the administrators' powers.^[66] Thus, where the local school board required religious exercises, the courts would not enjoin them;^[67] and where, as in at least one case, the school officials forbade devotional practices, the court refused on similar grounds to overrule that decision.^[68] Thus, whichever way the early cases came up, the governing principle of nearly complete deference to administrative discretion effectively foreclosed any consideration of constitutional questions.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century found the courts beginning to question the constitutionality of public school religious exercises. The legal context was still, of course, that of the state constitutions, since the First Amendment had not yet been held applicable to state action. And the state constitutional prohibitions against church-state cooperation or governmental aid to religion were generally less rigorous than the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is therefore remarkable that the courts of a half dozen States found compulsory religious exercises in the public schools in violation of their respective state constitutions.^[69] These [276] courts attributed much significance to the clearly religious origins and content of the challenged practices, and to the impossibility of avoiding sectarian controversy in their conduct. The Illinois Supreme Court expressed in 1910 the principles which characterized these decisions:

"The public school is supported by the taxes which each citizen, regardless of his religion or his lack of it, is compelled to pay. The school, like the government, is simply a civil institution. It is secular, and not religious, in its purposes. The truths of the Bible are the truths of religion, which do not come within the province of the public school. . . . No one denies that they should be taught to the youth of the State. The constitution and the law do not interfere with such teaching, but they do banish theological polemics from the schools and the school districts. This is done, not from any hostility to religion, but because it is no part of the duty of the State to teach religion,—to take the money of all and apply it to teaching the children of all the religion of a part, only. Instruction in religion must be voluntary." People ex rel. Ring v. Board of Education, 245 Ill. 334, 349, 92 N. E. 251, 256 (1910).

The Supreme Court of South Dakota, in banning devotional exercises from the public schools of that State, also cautioned that "[t]he state as an educator must keep out of this field, and especially is this true in the common schools, where the child is immature, without fixed religious convictions . . . ." State ex rel. Finger v. Weedman, 55 S. D. 343, 357, 226 N. W. 348, 354 (1929).

[277] Even those state courts which have sustained devotional exercises under state law^[70] have usually recognized the primarily religious character of prayers and Bible readings. If such practices were not for that reason unconstitutional, it was necessarily because the state constitution forbade only public expenditures for sectarian instruction, or for activities which made the school-house a "place of worship," but said nothing about the subtler question of laws "respecting an establishment of religion."^[71] Thus the panorama of history permits no [278] other conclusion than that daily prayers and Bible readings in the public schools have always been designed to be, and have been regarded as, essentially religious exercises. Unlike the Sunday closing laws, these exercises appear neither to have been divorced from their religious origins nor deprived of their centrally religious character by the passage of time,^[72] cf. McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442-445. On this distinction alone we might well rest a constitutional decision. But three further contentions have been pressed in the argument of these cases. These contentions deserve careful consideration, for if the position of the school authorities were correct in respect to any of them, we would be misapplying the principles of Engel v. Vitale.

A.

First, it is argued that however clearly religious may have been the origins and early nature of daily prayer and Bible reading, these practices today serve so clearly secular educational purposes that their religious attributes may be overlooked. I do not doubt, for example, that morning devotional exercises may foster better discipline in the classroom, and elevate the spiritual level on which the school day opens. The Pennsylvania Superintendent of Public Instruction, testifying by deposition in the Schempp case, offered his view that daily Bible reading "places upon the children or those hearing the reading of this, and the atmosphere which goes on in the reading . . . one of the last vestiges of moral value [279] that we have left in our school system." The exercise thus affords, the Superintendent concluded, "a strong contradiction to the materialistic trends of our time." Baltimore's Superintendent of Schools expressed a similar view of the practices challenged in the Murray case, to the effect that "[t]he acknowledgement of the existence of God as symbolized in the opening exercises establishes a discipline tone which tends to cause each individual pupil to constrain his overt acts and to consequently conform to accepted standards of behavior during his attendance at school." These views are by no means novel, see, e.g., Billard v. Board of Education, 69 Kan. 53, 57-58, 76 P. 422, 423 (1904).^[73]

It is not the business of this Court to gainsay the judgments of experts on matters of pedagogy. Such decisions must be left to the discretion of those administrators charged with the supervision of the Nation's public schools. The limited province of the courts is to determine whether the means which the educators have chosen to achieve legitimate pedagogical ends infringe the constitutional freedoms of the First Amendment. The secular purposes which devotional exercises are said to serve fall into two categories—those which depend upon an immediately religious experience shared by the participating children; and those which appear sufficiently divorced from the religious content of the devotional material that they can be served equally by nonreligious [280] materials. With respect to the first objective, much has been written about the moral and spiritual values of infusing some religious influence or instruction into the public school classroom.^[74] To the extent that only religious materials will serve this purpose, it seems to me that the purpose as well as the means is so plainly religious that the exercise is necessarily forbidden by the Establishment Clause. The fact that purely secular benefits may eventually result does not seem to me to justify the exercises, for similar indirect nonreligious benefits could no doubt have been claimed for the released time program invalidated in McCollum.

The second justification assumes that religious exercises at the start of the school day may directly serve solely secular ends—for example, by fostering harmony and tolerance among the pupils, enhancing the authority of the teacher, and inspiring better discipline. To the extent that such benefits result not from the content of the readings and recitation, but simply from the holding of such a solemn exercise at the opening assembly or the first class of the day, it would seem that less sensitive materials might equally well serve the same purpose. I have previously suggested that Torcaso and the Sunday Law Cases forbid the use of religious means to achieve secular [281] ends where nonreligious means will suffice. That principle is readily applied to these cases. It has not been shown that readings from the speeches and messages of great Americans, for example, or from the documents of our heritage of liberty, daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, or even the observance of a moment of reverent silence at the opening of class, may not adequately serve the solely secular purposes of the devotional activities without jeopardizing either the religious liberties of any members of the community or the proper degree of separation between the spheres of religion and government.^[75] Such substitutes would, I think, be unsatisfactory or inadequate only to the extent that the present activities do in fact serve religious goals. While I do not question the judgment of experienced educators that the challenged practices may well achieve valuable secular ends, it seems to me that the State acts unconstitutionally if it either sets about to attain even indirectly religious ends by religious means, or if it uses religious means to serve secular ends where secular means would suffice.

B.

Second, it is argued that the particular practices involved in the two cases before us are unobjectionable [282] because they prefer no particular sect or sects at the expense of others. Both the Baltimore and Abington procedures permit, for example, the reading of any of several versions of the Bible, and this flexibility is said to ensure neutrality sufficiently to avoid the constitutional prohibition. One answer, which might be dispositive, is that any version of the Bible is inherently sectarian, else there would be no need to offer a system of rotation or alternation of versions in the first place, that is, to allow different sectarian versions to be used on different days. The sectarian character of the Holy Bible has been at the core of the whole controversy over religious practices in the public schools throughout its long and often bitter history.^[76] To [283] vary the version as the Abington and Baltimore schools have done may well be less offensive than to read from the King James version every day, as once was the practice. But the result even of this relatively benign procedure is that majority sects are preferred in approximate proportion to their representation in the community and in the student body, while the smaller sects suffer commensurate discrimination. So long as the subject matter of the exercise is sectarian in character, these consequences cannot be avoided.

The argument contains, however, a more basic flaw. There are persons in every community—often deeply devout—to whom any version of the Judaeo-Christian Bible is offensive.^[77] There are others whose reverence for the Holy Scriptures demands private study or reflection and to whom public reading or recitation is sacrilegious, as one of the expert witnesses at the trial of the Schempp case explained. To such persons it is not the fact of using the Bible in the public schools, nor the content of any particular version, that is offensive, but only the manner in [284] which it is used.^[78] For such persons, the anathema of public communion is even more pronounced when prayer is involved. Many deeply devout persons have always regarded prayer as a necessarily private experience.^[79] One Protestant group recently commented, for example: "When one thinks of prayer as sincere outreach of a [285] human soul to the Creator, `required prayer' becomes an absurdity."^[80] There is a similar problem with respect to comment upon the passages of Scripture which are to be read. Most present statutes forbid comment, and this practice accords with the views of many religious groups as to the manner in which the Bible should be read. However, as a recent survey discloses, scriptural passages read without comment frequently convey no message to the younger children in the school. Thus there has developed a practice in some schools of bridging the gap between faith and understanding by means of "definitions," even where "comment" is forbidden by statute.^[81] The present practice therefore poses a difficult dilemma: While Bible reading is almost universally required to be without comment, since only by such a prohibition can sectarian interpretation be excluded from the classroom, [286] the rule breaks down at the point at which rudimentary definitions of Biblical terms are necessary for comprehension if the exercise is to be meaningful at all.

It has been suggested that a tentative solution to these problems may lie in the fashioning of a "common core" of theology tolerable to all creeds but preferential to none.^[82] But as one commentator has recently observed, "[h]istory is not encouraging to" those who hope to fashion a "common denominator of religion detached from its manifestation in any organized church." Sutherland, Establishment According to Engel, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 25, 51 (1962). Thus, the notion of a "common core" litany or supplication offends many deeply devout worshippers who do not find clearly sectarian practices objectionable.^[83] Father Gustave Weigel has recently expressed [287] a widely shared view: "The moral code held by each separate religious community can reductively be unified, but the consistent particular believer wants no such reduction."^[84] And, as the American Council on Education warned several years ago, "The notion of a common core suggests a watering down of the several faiths to the point where common essentials appear. This might easily lead to a new sect—a public school sect—which would take its place alongside the existing faiths and compete with them."^[85]Engel is surely authority that nonsectarian religious practices, equally with sectarian exercises, violate the Establishment Clause. Moreover, even if the Establishment Clause were oblivious to nonsectarian religious practices, I think it quite likely that the "common core" approach would be sufficiently objectionable to many groups to be foreclosed by the prohibitions of the Free Exercise Clause.

C.

A third element which is said to absolve the practices involved in these cases from the ban of the religious guarantees of the Constitution is the provision to excuse or exempt students who wish not to participate. Insofar as these practices are claimed to violate the Establishment [288] Clause, I find the answer which the District Court gave after our remand of Schempp to be altogether dispositive:

"The fact that some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, might be excused from attendance at the exercises does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the ceremony . . . . The exercises are held in the school buildings and perforce are conducted by and under the authority of the local school authorities and during school sessions. Since the statute requires the reading of the `Holy Bible,' a Christian document, the practice, as we said in our first opinion, prefers the Christian religion. The record demonstrates that it was the intention of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to introduce a religious ceremony into the public schools of the Commonwealth." 201 F. Supp., at 819.

Thus the short, and to me sufficient, answer is that the availability of excusal or exemption simply has no relevance to the establishment question, if it is once found that these practices are essentially religious exercises designed at least in part to achieve religious aims through the use of public school facilities during the school day.

The more difficult question, however, is whether the availability of excusal for the dissenting child serves to refute challenges to these practices under the Free Exercise Clause. While it is enough to decide these cases to dispose of the establishment questions, questions of free exercise are so inextricably interwoven into the history and present status of these practices as to justify disposition of this second aspect of the excusal issue. The answer is that the excusal procedure itself necessarily operates in such a way as to infringe the rights of free exercise of those children who wish to be excused. We have held in Barnette and Torcaso, respectively, that a State may require neither public school students nor candidates [289] for an office of public trust to profess beliefs offensive to religious principles. By the same token the State could not constitutionally require a student to profess publicly his disbelief as the prerequisite to the exercise of his constitutional right of abstention. And apart from Torcaso and Barnette, I think Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, suggests a further answer. We held there that a State may not condition the grant of a tax exemption upon the willingness of those entitled to the exemption to affirm their loyalty to the Government, even though the exemption was itself a matter of grace rather than of constitutional right. We concluded that to impose upon the eligible taxpayers the affirmative burden of proving their loyalty impermissibly jeopardized the freedom to engage in constitutionally protected activities close to the area to which the loyalty oath related. Speiser v. Randall seems to me to dispose of two aspects of the excusal or exemption procedure now before us. First, by requiring what is tantamount in the eyes of teachers and schoolmates to a profession of disbelief, or at least of nonconformity, the procedure may well deter those children who do not wish to participate for any reason based upon the dictates of conscience from exercising an indisputably constitutional right to be excused.^[86] Thus the excusal [290] provision in its operation subjects them to a cruel dilemma. In consequence, even devout children may well avoid claiming their right and simply continue to participate in exercises distasteful to them because of an understandable reluctance to be stigmatized as atheists or nonconformists simply on the basis of their request.

Such reluctance to seek exemption seems all the more likely in view of the fact that children are disinclined at this age to step out of line or to flout "peer-group norms." Such is the widely held view of experts who have studied the behaviors and attitudes of children.^[87] This is also [291] the basis of Mr. Justice Frankfurter's answer to a similar contention made in the McCollum case:

"That a child is offered an alternative may reduce the constraint; it does not eliminate the operation of influence by the school in matters sacred to conscience and outside the school's domain. The law of imitation operates, and non-conformity is not an [292] outstanding characteristic of children. The result is an obvious pressure upon children to attend." 333 U. S., at 227.

Also apposite is the answer given more than 70 years ago by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to the argument that an excusal provision saved a public school devotional exercise from constitutional invalidation:

". . . the excluded pupil loses caste with his fellows, and is liable to be regarded with aversion, and subjected to reproach and insult. But it is a sufficient refutation of the argument that the practice in question tends to destroy the equality of the pupils which the constitution seeks to establish and protect, and puts a portion of them to serious disadvantage in many ways with respect to the others." State ex rel. Weiss v. District Board of School District No. 8, 76 Wis. 177, 200, 44 N. W. 967, 975.

And 50 years ago a like answer was offered by the Louisiana Supreme Court:

"Under such circumstances, the children would be excused from the opening exercises . . . because of their religious beliefs. And excusing such children on religious grounds, although the number excused might be very small, would be a distinct preference in favor of the religious beliefs of the majority, and would work a discrimination against those who were excused. The exclusion of a pupil under such circumstances puts him in a class by himself; it subjects him to a religious stigma; and all because of his religious belief. Equality in public education would be destroyed by such act, under a Constitution which seeks to establish equality and freedom in religious matters." Herold v. Parish Board of School Directors, 136 La. 1034, 1049-1050, 68 So. 116, 121. See also Tudor v. Board of Education, 14 N. J. 31, 48-52, [293] 100 A. 2d 857, 867-868; Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 128 So. 2d 181, 185 (Fla. App.).

Speiser v. Randall also suggests the answer to a further argument based on the excusal procedure. It has been suggested by the School Board, in Schempp, that we ought not pass upon the appellees' constitutional challenge at least until the children have availed themselves of the excusal procedure and found it inadequate to redress their grievances. Were the right to be excused not itself of constitutional stature, I might have some doubt about this issue. But we held in Speiser that the constitutional vice of the loyalty oath procedure discharged any obligation to seek the exemption before challenging the constitutionality of the conditions upon which it might have been denied. 357 U. S., at 529. Similarly, we have held that one need not apply for a permit to distribute constitutionally protected literature, Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, or to deliver a speech, Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, before he may attack the constitutionality of a licensing system of which the defect is patent. Insofar as these cases implicate only questions of establishment, it seems to me that the availability of an excuse is constitutionally irrelevant. Moreover, the excusal procedure seems to me to operate in such a way as to discourage the free exercise of religion on the part of those who might wish to utilize it, thereby rendering it unconstitutional in an additional and quite distinct respect.

To summarize my views concerning the merits of these two cases: The history, the purpose and the operation of the daily prayer recital and Bible reading leave no doubt that these practices standing by themselves constitute an impermissible breach of the Establishment Clause. Such devotional exercises may well serve legitimate nonreligious purposes. To the extent, however, that such purposes [294] are really without religious significance, it has never been demonstrated that secular means would not suffice. Indeed, I would suggest that patriotic or other nonreligious materials might provide adequate substitutes— inadequate only to the extent that the purposes now served are indeed directly or indirectly religious. Under such circumstances, the States may not employ religious means to reach a secular goal unless secular means are wholly unavailing. I therefore agree with the Court that the judgment in Schempp, No. 142, must be affirmed, and that in Murray, No. 119, must be reversed.

V.

These considerations bring me to a final contention of the school officials in these cases: that the invalidation of the exercises at bar permits this Court no alternative but to declare unconstitutional every vestige, however slight, of cooperation or accommodation between religion and government. I cannot accept that contention. While it is not, of course, appropriate for this Court to decide questions not presently before it, I venture to suggest that religious exercises in the public schools present a unique problem. For not every involvement of religion in public life violates the Establishment Clause. Our decision in these cases does not clearly forecast anything about the constitutionality of other types of interdependence between religious and other public institutions.

Specifically, I believe that the line we must draw between the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding Fathers. It is a line which the Court has consistently sought to mark in its decisions expounding the religious guarantees of the First Amendment. What the Framers meant to foreclose, and what our decisions under the Establishment Clause have forbidden, [295] are those involvements of religious with secular institutions which (a) serve the essentially religious activities of religious institutions; (b) employ the organs of government for essentially religious purposes; or (c) use essentially religious means to serve governmental ends, where secular means would suffice. When the secular and religious institutions become involved in such a manner, there inhere in the relationship precisely those dangers —as much to church as to state—which the Framers feared would subvert religious liberty and the strength of a system of secular government. On the other hand, there may be myriad forms of involvements of government with religion which do not import such dangers and therefore should not, in my judgment, be deemed to violate the Establishment Clause. Nothing in the Constitution compels the organs of government to be blind to what everyone else perceives—that religious differences among Americans have important and pervasive implications for our society. Likewise nothing in the Establishment Clause forbids the application of legislation having purely secular ends in such a way as to alleviate burdens upon the free exercise of an individual's religious beliefs. Surely the Framers would never have understood that such a construction sanctions that involvement which violates the Establishment Clause. Such a conclusion can be reached, I would suggest, only by using the words of the First Amendment to defeat its very purpose.

The line between permissible and impermissible forms of involvement between government and religion has already been considered by the lower federal and state courts. I think a brief survey of certain of these forms of accommodation will reveal that the First Amendment commands not official hostility toward religion, but only a strict neutrality in matters of religion. Moreover, it may serve to suggest that the scope of our holding today [296] is to be measured by the special circumstances under which these cases have arisen, and by the particular dangers to church and state which religious exercises in the public schools present. It may be helpful for purposes of analysis to group these other practices and forms of accommodation into several rough categories.

A. The Conflict Between Establishment and Free Exercise. —There are certain practices, conceivably violative of the Establishment Clause, the striking down of which might seriously interfere with certain religious liberties also protected by the First Amendment.^[88] Provisions for churches and chaplains at military establishments for those in the armed services may afford one such example.^[89] [297] The like provision by state and federal governments for chaplains in penal institutions may afford another example.^[90] It is argued that such provisions may be assumed to contravene the Establishment Clause, yet be sustained on constitutional grounds as necessary to secure to the members of the Armed Forces and prisoners those rights of worship guaranteed under the Free Exercise Clause. Since government has deprived such persons of the opportunity [298] to practice their faith at places of their choice, the argument runs, government may, in order to avoid infringing the free exercise guarantees, provide substitutes where it requires such persons to be. Such a principle might support, for example, the constitutionality of draft exemptions for ministers and divinity students,^[91] cf. Selective Draft Law Cases, 245 U. S. 366, 389-390; of the excusal of children from school on their respective religious holidays; and of the allowance by government of temporary use of public buildings by religious organizations when their own churches have become unavailable because of a disaster or emergency.^[92]

Such activities and practices seem distinguishable from the sponsorship of daily Bible reading and prayer recital. For one thing, there is no element of coercion present in the appointment of military or prison chaplains; the soldier or convict who declines the opportunities for worship would not ordinarily subject himself to the suspicion or obloquy of his peers. Of special significance to this distinction is the fact that we are here usually dealing [299] with adults, not with impressionable children as in the public schools. Moreover, the school exercises are not designed to provide the pupils with general opportunities for worship denied them by the legal obligation to attend school. The student's compelled presence in school for five days a week in no way renders the regular religious facilities of the community less accessible to him than they are to others. The situation of the school child is therefore plainly unlike that of the isolated soldier or the prisoner.

The State must be steadfastly neutral in all matters of faith, and neither favor nor inhibit religion. In my view, government cannot sponsor religious exercises in the public schools without jeopardizing that neutrality. On the other hand, hostility, not neutrality, would characterize the refusal to provide chaplains and places of worship for prisoners and soldiers cut off by the State from all civilian opportunities for public communion, the withholding of draft exemptions for ministers and conscientious objectors, or the denial of the temporary use of an empty public building to a congregation whose place of worship has been destroyed by fire or flood. I do not say that government must provide chaplains or draft exemptions, or that the courts should intercede if it fails to do so.

B. Establishment and Exercises in Legislative Bodies. —The saying of invocational prayers in legislative chambers, state or federal, and the appointment of legislative chaplains, might well represent no involvements of the kind prohibited by the Establishment Clause.^[93] Legislators, federal and state, are mature adults who may presumably absent themselves from such public and ceremonial [300] exercises without incurring any penalty, direct or indirect. It may also be significant that, at least in the case of the Congress, Art. I, § 5, of the Constitution makes each House the monitor of the "Rules of its Proceedings" so that it is at least arguable whether such matters present "political questions" the resolution of which is exclusively confided to Congress. See Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 232. Finally, there is the difficult question of who may be heard to challenge such practices. See Elliott v. White, 23 F. 2d 997.

C. Non-Devotional Use of the Bible in the Public Schools.—The holding of the Court today plainly does not foreclose teaching about the Holy Scriptures or about the differences between religious sects in classes in literature or history. Indeed, whether or not the Bible is involved, it would be impossible to teach meaningfully many subjects in the social sciences or the humanities without some mention of religion.^[94] To what extent, and at what points in the curriculum, religious materials should be cited are matters which the courts ought to entrust very largely to the experienced officials who superintend our Nation's public schools. They are experts in such matters, and we are not. We should heed Mr. Justice Jackson's caveat that any attempt by this Court to announce curricular standards would be "to decree a uniform, rigid and, if we are consistent, an unchanging standard for countless school boards representing [301] and serving highly localized groups which not only differ from each other but which themselves from time to time change attitudes." Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, supra, at 237.

We do not, however, in my view usurp the jurisdiction of school administrators by holding as we do today that morning devotional exercises in any form are constitutionally invalid. But there is no occasion now to go further and anticipate problems we cannot judge with the material now before us. Any attempt to impose rigid limits upon the mention of God or references to the Bible in the classroom would be fraught with dangers. If it should sometime hereafter be shown that in fact religion can play no part in the teaching of a given subject without resurrecting the ghost of the practices we strike down today, it will then be time enough to consider questions we must now defer.

D. Uniform Tax Exemptions Incidentally Available to Religious Institutions.—Nothing we hold today questions the propriety of certain tax deductions or exemptions which incidentally benefit churches and religious institutions, along with many secular charities and nonprofit organizations. If religious institutions benefit, it is in spite of rather than because of their religious character. For religious institutions simply share benefits which government makes generally available to educational, charitable, and eleemosynary groups.^[95] There is no indication that taxing authorities have used such benefits in any way to subsidize worship or foster belief in God. And as [302] among religious beneficiaries, the tax exemption or deduction can be truly nondiscriminatory, available on equal terms to small as well as large religious bodies, to popular and unpopular sects, and to those organizations which reject as well as those which accept a belief in God.^[96]

E. Religious Considerations in Public Welfare Programs. —Since government may not support or directly aid religious activities without violating the Establishment Clause, there might be some doubt whether nondiscriminatory programs of governmental aid may constitutionally include individuals who become eligible wholly or partially for religious reasons. For example, it might be suggested that where a State provides unemployment compensation generally to those who are unable to find suitable work, it may not extend such benefits to persons who are unemployed by reason of religious beliefs or practices without thereby establishing the religion to which those persons belong. Therefore, the argument runs, the State may avoid an establishment only by singling out and excluding such persons on the ground that religious beliefs or practices have made them potential beneficiaries. Such a construction would, it seems to me, require government to impose religious discriminations and disabilities, thereby jeopardizing the free exercise of religion, in order to avoid what is thought to constitute an establishment.

The inescapable flaw in the argument, I suggest, is its quite unrealistic view of the aims of the Establishment Clause. The Framers were not concerned with the effects of certain incidental aids to individual worshippers which come about as by-products of general and nondiscriminatory welfare programs. If such benefits serve to make [303] easier or less expensive the practice of a particular creed, or of all religions, it can hardly be said that the purpose of the program is in any way religious, or that the consequence of its nondiscriminatory application is to create the forbidden degree of interdependence between secular and sectarian institutions. I cannot therefore accept the suggestion, which seems to me implicit in the argument outlined here, that every judicial or administrative construction which is designed to prevent a public welfare program from abridging the free exercise of religious beliefs, is for that reason ipso facto an establishment of religion.

F. Activities Which, Though Religious in Origin, Have Ceased to Have Religious Meaning.—As we noted in our Sunday Law decisions, nearly every criminal law on the books can be traced to some religious principle or inspiration. But that does not make the present enforcement of the criminal law in any sense an establishment of religion, simply because it accords with widely held religious principles. As we said in McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442, "the `Establishment' Clause does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct whose reason or effect merely happens to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions." This rationale suggests that the use of the motto "In God We Trust" on currency, on documents and public buildings and the like may not offend the clause. It is not that the use of those four words can be dismissed as "de minimis"—for I suspect there would be intense opposition to the abandonment of that motto. The truth is that we have simply interwoven the motto so deeply into the fabric of our civil polity that its present use may well not present that type of involvement which the First Amendment prohibits.

This general principle might also serve to insulate the various patriotic exercises and activities used in the public schools and elsewhere which, whatever may have been [304] their origins, no longer have a religious purpose or meaning. The reference to divinity in the revised pledge of allegiance, for example, may merely recognize the historical fact that our Nation was believed to have been founded "under God." Thus reciting the pledge may be no more of a religious exercise than the reading aloud of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which contains an allusion to the same historical fact.

The principles which we reaffirm and apply today can hardly be thought novel or radical. They are, in truth, as old as the Republic itself, and have always been as integral a part of the First Amendment as the very words of that charter of religious liberty. No less applicable today than they were when first pronounced a century ago, one year after the very first court decision involving religious exercises in the public schools, are the words of a distinguished Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Jeremiah S. Black:

"The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, was to have a State without religion, and a Church without politics—that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for any purpose of the other, and that no man's rights in one should be tested by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men's political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes of religious faith. . . . Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions entirely separate." Essay on Religious Liberty, in Black, ed., Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black (1886), 53.

[305] MR. JUSTICE GOLDBERG, with whom MR. JUSTICE HARLAN joins, concurring.

As is apparent from the opinions filed today, delineation of the constitutionally permissible relationship between religion and government is a most difficult and sensitive task, calling for the careful exercise of both judicial and public judgment and restraint. The considerations which lead the Court today to interdict the clearly religious practices presented in these cases are to me wholly compelling; I have no doubt as to the propriety of the decision and therefore join the opinion and judgment of the Court. The singular sensitivity and concern which surround both the legal and practical judgments involved impel me, however, to add a few words in further explication, while at the same time avoiding repetition of the carefully and ably framed examination of history and authority by my Brethren.

The First Amendment's guarantees, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, foreclose not only laws "respecting an establishment of religion" but also those "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." These two proscriptions are to be read together, and in light of the single end which they are designed to serve. The basic purpose of the religion clause of the First Amendment is to promote and assure the fullest possible scope of religious liberty and tolerance for all and to nurture the conditions which secure the best hope of attainment of that end.

The fullest realization of true religious liberty requires that government neither engage in nor compel religious practices, that it effect no favoritism among sects or between religion and nonreligion, and that it work deterrence of no religious belief. But devotion even to these simply stated objectives presents no easy course, for the unavoidable accommodations necessary to achieve the [306] maximum enjoyment of each and all of them are often difficult of discernment. There is for me no simple and clear measure which by precise application can readily and invariably demark the permissible from the impermissible.

It is said, and I agree, that the attitude of government toward religion must be one of neutrality. But untutored devotion to the concept of neutrality can lead to invocation or approval of results which partake not simply of that noninterference and noninvolvement with the religious which the Constitution commands, but of a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious. Such results are not only not compelled by the Constitution, but, it seems to me, are prohibited by it.

Neither government nor this Court can or should ignore the significance of the fact that a vast portion of our people believe in and worship God and that many of our legal, political and personal values derive historically from religious teachings. Government must inevitably take cognizance of the existence of religion and, indeed, under certain circumstances the First Amendment may require that it do so. And it seems clear to me from the opinions in the present and past cases that the Court would recognize the propriety of providing military chaplains and of the teaching about religion, as distinguished from the teaching of religion, in the public schools. The examples could readily be multiplied, for both the required and the permissible accommodations between state and church frame the relation as one free of hostility or favor and productive of religious and political harmony, but without undue involvement of one in the concerns or practices of the other. To be sure, the judgment in each case is a delicate one, but it must be made if we are to do loyal service as judges to the ultimate First Amendment objective of religious liberty.

[307] The practices here involved do not fall within any sensible or acceptable concept of compelled or permitted accommodation and involve the state so significantly and directly in the realm of the sectarian as to give rise to those very divisive influences and inhibitions of freedom which both religion clauses of the First Amendment preclude. The state has ordained and has utilized its facilities to engage in unmistakably religious exercises—the devotional reading and recitation of the Holy Bible—in a manner having substantial and significant import and impact. That it has selected, rather than written, a particular devotional liturgy seems to me without constitutional import. The pervasive religiosity and direct governmental involvement inhering in the prescription of prayer and Bible reading in the public schools, during and as part of the curricular day, involving young impressionable children whose school attendance is statutorily compelled, and utilizing the prestige, power, and influence of school administration, staff, and authority, cannot realistically be termed simply accommodation, and must fall within the interdiction of the First Amendment. I find nothing in the opinion of the Court which says more than this. And, of course, today's decision does not mean that all incidents of government which import of the religious are therefore and without more banned by the strictures of the Establishment Clause. As the Court declared only last Term in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 435, n. 21:

"There is of course nothing in the decision reached here that is inconsistent with the fact that school children and others are officially encouraged to express love for our country by reciting historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence which contain references to the Deity or by singing officially espoused anthems which include the composer's professions of faith in a Supreme Being, or [308] with the fact that there are many manifestations in our public life of belief in God. Such patriotic or ceremonial occasions bear no true resemblance to the unquestioned religious exercise that the State . . . has sponsored in this instance."

The First Amendment does not prohibit practices which by any realistic measure create none of the dangers which it is designed to prevent and which do not so directly or substantially involve the state in religious exercises or in the favoring of religion as to have meaningful and practical impact. It is of course true that great consequences can grow from small beginnings, but the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, dissenting.

I think the records in the two cases before us are so fundamentally deficient as to make impossible an informed or responsible determination of the constitutional issues presented. Specifically, I cannot agree that on these records we can say that the Establishment Clause has necessarily been violated.^[97] But I think there exist serious questions under both that provision and the Free Exercise Clause—insofar as each is imbedded in the Fourteenth Amendment—which require the remand of these cases for the taking of additional evidence.

I.

The First Amendment declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." It is, I [309] think, a fallacious oversimplification to regard these two provisions as establishing a single constitutional standard of "separation of church and state," which can be mechanically applied in every case to delineate the required boundaries between government and religion. We err in the first place if we do not recognize, as a matter of history and as a matter of the imperatives of our free society, that religion and government must necessarily interact in countless ways. Secondly, the fact is that while in many contexts the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause fully complement each other, there are areas in which a doctrinaire reading of the Establishment Clause leads to irreconcilable conflict with the Free Exercise Clause.

A single obvious example should suffice to make the point. Spending federal funds to employ chaplains for the armed forces might be said to violate the Establishment Clause. Yet a lonely soldier stationed at some faraway outpost could surely complain that a government which did not provide him the opportunity for pastoral guidance was affirmatively prohibiting the free exercise of his religion. And such examples could readily be multiplied. The short of the matter is simply that the two relevant clauses of the First Amendment cannot accurately be reflected in a sterile metaphor which by its very nature may distort rather than illumine the problems involved in a particular case. Cf. Sherbert v. Verner, post, p. 398.

II.

As a matter of history, the First Amendment was adopted solely as a limitation upon the newly created National Government. The events leading to its adoption strongly suggest that the Establishment Clause was primarily an attempt to insure that Congress not only would be powerless to establish a national church, but [310] would also be unable to interfere with existing state establishments. See McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 440-441. Each State was left free to go its own way and pursue its own policy with respect to religion. Thus Virginia from the beginning pursued a policy of disestablishmentarianism. Massachusetts, by contrast, had an established church until well into the nineteenth century.

So matters stood until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, or more accurately, until this Court's decision in Cantwell v. Connecticut, in 1940. 310 U. S. 296. In that case the Court said: "The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws."^[98]

I accept without question that the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against impairment by the States embraces in full the right of free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and I yield to no one in my conception of the breadth of that freedom. See Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 616 (dissenting opinion). I accept too the proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment has somehow absorbed the Establishment Clause, although it is not without irony that a constitutional provision evidently designed to leave the States free to go their own way should now have become a restriction upon their autonomy. But I cannot agree with what seems to me the insensitive definition of the Establishment Clause contained in the Court's opinion, nor with the different but, I think, equally mechanistic definitions contained in the separate opinions which have been filed.

[311] III.

Since the Cantwell pronouncement in 1940, this Court has only twice held invalid state laws on the ground that they were laws "respecting an establishment of religion" in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421. On the other hand, the Court has upheld against such a challenge laws establishing Sunday as a compulsory day of rest, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, and a law authorizing reimbursement from public funds for the transportation of parochial school pupils. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1.

Unlike other First Amendment guarantees, there is an inherent limitation upon the applicability of the Establishment Clause's ban on state support to religion. That limitation was succinctly put in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 18: "State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them."^[99] And in a later case, this Court recognized that the limitation was one which was itself compelled by the free exercise guarantee. "To hold that a state cannot consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not . . . manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free [312] exercise of religion." McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 211-212.

That the central value embodied in the First Amendment —and, more particularly, in the guarantee of "liberty" contained in the Fourteenth—is the safeguarding of an individual's right to free exercise of his religion has been consistently recognized. Thus, in the case of Hamilton v. Regents, 293 U. S. 245, 265, Mr. Justice Cardozo, concurring, assumed that it was ". . . the religious liberty protected by the First Amendment against invasion by the nation [which] is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against invasion by the states." (Emphasis added.) And in Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, the purpose of those guarantees was described in the following terms: "On the one hand, it forestalls compulsion by law of the acceptance of any creed or the practice of any form of worship. Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion." 310 U. S., at 303.

It is this concept of constitutional protection embodied in our decisions which makes the cases before us such difficult ones for me. For there is involved in these cases a substantial free exercise claim on the part of those who affirmatively desire to have their children's school day open with the reading of passages from the Bible.

It has become accepted that the decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, upholding the right of parents to send their children to nonpublic schools, was ultimately based upon the recognition of the validity of the free exercise claim involved in that situation. It might be argued here that parents who wanted their children to be exposed to religious influences in school could, under Pierce, send their children to private or parochial [313] schools. But the consideration which renders this contention too facile to be determinative has already been recognized by the Court: "Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion are available to all, not merely to those who can pay their own way." Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 111.

It might also be argued that parents who want their children exposed to religious influences can adequately fulfill that wish off school property and outside school time. With all its surface persuasiveness, however, this argument seriously misconceives the basic constitutional justification for permitting the exercises at issue in these cases. For a compulsory state educational system so structures a child's life that if religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism, or at the least, as government support of the beliefs of those who think that religious exercises should be conducted only in private.

What seems to me to be of paramount importance, then, is recognition of the fact that the claim advanced here in favor of Bible reading is sufficiently substantial to make simple reference to the constitutional phrase "establishment of religion" as inadequate an analysis of the cases before us as the ritualistic invocation of the nonconstitutional phrase "separation of church and state." What these cases compel, rather, is an analysis of just what the "neutrality" is which is required by the interplay of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment, as imbedded in the Fourteenth.

[314] IV.

Our decisions make clear that there is no constitutional bar to the use of government property for religious purposes. On the contrary, this Court has consistently held that the discriminatory barring of religious groups from public property is itself a violation of First and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees. Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268. A different standard has been applied to public school property, because of the coercive effect which the use by religious sects of a compulsory school system would necessarily have upon the children involved. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203. But insofar as the McCollum decision rests on the Establishment rather than the Free Exercise Clause, it is clear that its effect is limited to religious instruction—to government support of proselytizing activities of religious sects by throwing the weight of secular authority behind the dissemination of religious tenets.^[100]

The dangers both to government and to religion inherent in official support of instruction in the tenets of various religious sects are absent in the present cases, which involve only a reading from the Bible unaccompanied by comments which might otherwise constitute instruction. Indeed, since, from all that appears in either record, any teacher who does not wish to do so is free not to participate,^[101] it cannot even be contended that some [315] infinitesimal part of the salaries paid by the State are made contingent upon the performance of a religious function.

In the absence of evidence that the legislature or school board intended to prohibit local schools from substituting a different set of readings where parents requested such a change, we should not assume that the provisions before us—as actually administered—may not be construed simply as authorizing religious exercises, nor that the designations may not be treated simply as indications of the promulgating body's view as to the community's preference. We are under a duty to interpret these provisions so as to render them constitutional if reasonably possible. Compare Two Guys v. McGinley, 366 U. S. 582, 592-595; Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 4, and n. 2. In the Schempp case there is evidence which indicates that variations were in fact permitted by the very school there involved, and that further variations were not introduced only because of the absence of requests from parents. And in the Murray case the Baltimore rule itself contains a provision permitting another version of the Bible to be substituted for the King James version.

If the provisions are not so construed, I think that their validity under the Establishment Clause would be extremely doubtful, because of the designation of a particular religious book and a denominational prayer. But since, even if the provisions are construed as I believe they must be, I think that the cases before us must be remanded for further evidence on other issues—thus affording the plaintiffs an opportunity to prove that local variations are not in fact permitted—I shall for the balance [316] of this dissenting opinion treat the provisions before us as making the variety and content of the exercises, as well as a choice as to their implementation, matters which ultimately reflect the consensus of each local school community. In the absence of coercion upon those who do not wish to participate—because they hold less strong beliefs, other beliefs, or no beliefs at all—such provisions cannot, in my view, be held to represent the type of support of religion barred by the Establishment Clause. For the only support which such rules provide for religion is the withholding of state hostility—a simple acknowledgment on the part of secular authorities that the Constitution does not require extirpation of all expression of religious belief.

V.

I have said that these provisions authorizing religious exercises are properly to be regarded as measures making possible the free exercise of religion. But it is important to stress that, strictly speaking, what is at issue here is a privilege rather than a right. In other words, the question presented is not whether exercises such as those at issue here are constitutionally compelled, but rather whether they are constitutionally invalid. And that issue, in my view, turns on the question of coercion.

It is clear that the dangers of coercion involved in the holding of religious exercises in a schoolroom differ qualitatively from those presented by the use of similar exercises or affirmations in ceremonies attended by adults. Even as to children, however, the duty laid upon government in connection with religious exercises in the public schools is that of refraining from so structuring the school environment as to put any kind of pressure on a child to participate in those exercises; it is not that of providing an atmosphere in which children are kept scrupulously insulated from any awareness that some of their fellows [317] may want to open the school day with prayer, or of the fact that there exist in our pluralistic society differences of religious belief.

These are not, it must be stressed, cases like Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, in which this Court held that, in the sphere of public education, the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws required that race not be treated as a relevant factor. A segregated school system is not invalid because its operation is coercive; it is invalid simply because our Constitution presupposes that men are created equal, and that therefore racial differences cannot provide a valid basis for governmental action. Accommodation of religious differences on the part of the State, however, is not only permitted but required by that same Constitution.

The governmental neutrality which the First and Fourteenth Amendments require in the cases before us, in other words, is the extension of evenhanded treatment to all who believe, doubt, or disbelieve—a refusal on the part of the State to weight the scales of private choice. In these cases, therefore, what is involved is not state action based on impermissible categories, but rather an attempt by the State to accommodate those differences which the existence in our society of a variety of religious beliefs makes inevitable. The Constitution requires that such efforts be struck down only if they are proven to entail the use of the secular authority of government to coerce a preference among such beliefs.

It may well be, as has been argued to us, that even the supposed benefits to be derived from noncoercive religious exercises in public schools are incommensurate with the administrative problems which they would create. The choice involved, however, is one for each local community and its school board, and not for this Court. For, as I have said, religious exercises are not constitutionally invalid if they simply reflect differences which exist in the [318] society from which the school draws its pupils. They become constitutionally invalid only if their administration places the sanction of secular authority behind one or more particular religious or irreligious beliefs.

To be specific, it seems to me clear that certain types of exercises would present situations in which no possibility of coercion on the part of secular officials could be claimed to exist. Thus, if such exercises were held either before or after the official school day, or if the school schedule were such that participation were merely one among a number of desirable alternatives,^[102] it could hardly be contended that the exercises did anything more than to provide an opportunity for the voluntary expression of religious belief. On the other hand, a law which provided for religious exercises during the school day and which contained no excusal provision would obviously be unconstitutionally coercive upon those who did not wish to participate. And even under a law containing an excusal provision, if the exercises were held during the school day, and no equally desirable alternative were provided by the school authorities, the likelihood that children might be under at least some psychological compulsion to participate would be great. In a case such as the latter, however, I think we would err if we assumed such coercion in the absence of any evidence.^[103]

[319] VI.

Viewed in this light, it seems to me clear that the records in both of the cases before us are wholly inadequate to support an informed or responsible decision. Both cases involve provisions which explicitly permit any student who wishes, to be excused from participation in the exercises. There is no evidence in either case as to whether there would exist any coercion of any kind upon a student who did not want to participate. No evidence at all was adduced in the Murray case, because it was decided upon a demurrer. All that we have in that case, therefore, is the conclusory language of a pleading. While such conclusory allegations are acceptable for procedural purposes, I think that the nature of the constitutional problem involved here clearly demands that no decision be made except upon evidence. In the Schempp case the record shows no more than a subjective prophecy by a parent of what he thought would happen if a request were made to be excused from participation in the exercises under the amended statute. No such request was ever made, and there is no evidence whatever as to what might or would actually happen, nor of what administrative arrangements the school actually might or could make to free from pressure of any kind those who do not want to participate in the exercises. There were no District Court findings on this issue, since the case under the amended statute was decided exclusively on Establishment Clause grounds. 201 F. Supp. 815.

What our Constitution indispensably protects is the freedom of each of us, be he Jew or Agnostic, Christian or [320] Atheist, Buddhist or Freethinker, to believe or disbelieve, to worship or not worship, to pray or keep silent, according to his own conscience, uncoerced and unrestrained by government. It is conceivable that these school boards, or even all school boards, might eventually find it impossible to administer a system of religious exercises during school hours in such a way as to meet this constitutional standard—in such a way as completely to free from any kind of official coercion those who do not affirmatively want to participate.^[104] But I think we must not assume that school boards so lack the qualities of inventiveness and good will as to make impossible the achievement of that goal.

I would remand both cases for further hearings.

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[1] Together with No. 119, Murray et al. v. Curlett et al., Constituting the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City, on certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Maryland, argued February 27, 1963.

[2] The action was brought in 1958, prior to the 1959 amendment of § 15-1516 authorizing a child's nonattendance at the exercises upon parental request. The three-judge court held the statute and the practices complained of unconstitutional under both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. 177 F. Supp. 398. Pending appeal to this Court by the school district, the statute was so amended, and we vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings. 364 U. S. 298. The same three-judge court granted appellees' motion to amend the pleadings, 195 F. Supp. 518, held a hearing on the amended pleadings and rendered the judgment, 201 F. Supp. 815, from which appeal is now taken.

[3] The statute as amended imposes no penalty upon a teacher refusing to obey its mandate. However, it remains to be seen whether one refusing could have his contract of employment terminated for "wilful violation of the school laws." 24 Pa. Stat. (Supp. 1960) § 11-1122.

[4]The trial court summarized his testimony as follows:

"Edward Schempp, the children's father, testified that after careful consideration he had decided that he should not have Roger or Donna excused from attendance at these morning ceremonies. Among his reasons were the following. He said that he thought his children would be `labeled as "odd balls" ' before their teachers and classmates every school day; that children, like Roger's and Donna's classmates, were liable `to lump all particular religious difference[s] or religious objections [together] as "atheism" ' and that today the word `atheism' is often connected with `atheistic communism,' and has `very bad' connotations, such as `un-American' or `anti-Red,' with overtones of possible immorality. Mr. Schempp pointed out that due to the events of the morning exercises following in rapid succession, the Bible reading, the Lord's Prayer, the Flag Salute, and the announcements, excusing his children from the Bible reading would mean that probably they would miss hearing the announcements so important to children. He testified also that if Roger and Donna were excused from Bible reading they would have to stand in the hall outside their `homeroom' and that this carried with it the imputation of punishment for bad conduct." 201 F. Supp., at 818.

[5] The rule as amended provides as follows:

"Opening Exercises. Each school, either collectively or in classes, shall be opened by the reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord's Prayer. The Douay version may be used by those pupils who prefer it. Appropriate patriotic exercises should be held as a part of the general opening exercise of the school or class. Any child shall be excused from participating in the opening exercises or from attending the opening exercises upon the written request of his parent or guardian."

[6] There were established churches in at least eight of the original colonies, and various degrees of religious support in others as late as the Revolutionary War. See Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 428, n. 10.

[7] "There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes, that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of conscience I ever pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges, that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any."

[8] Superior Court of Cincinnati, February 1870. The opinion is not reported but is published under the title, The Bible in the Common Schools (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1870). Judge Taft's views, expressed in dissent, prevailed on appeal. See Board of Education of Cincinnati v. Minor,23 Ohio St. 211, 253 (1872), in which the Ohio Supreme Court held that:

"The great bulk of human affairs and human interests is left by any free government to individual enterprise and individual action. Religion is eminently one of these interests, lying outside the true and legitimate province of government."

[9] Application to the States of other clauses of the First Amendment obtained even before Cantwell. Almost 40 years ago in the opinion of the Court in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666 (1925), Mr. Justice Sanford said: "For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press—which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress—are among the fundamental personal rights and `liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States."

[10] It goes without saying that the laws and practices involved here can be challenged only by persons having standing to complain. But the requirements for standing to challenge state action under the Establishment Clause, unlike those relating to the Free Exercise Clause, do not include proof that particular religious freedoms are infringed. McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 429-430. The parties here are school children and their parents, who are directly affected by the laws and practices against which their complaints are directed. These interests surely suffice to give the parties standing to complain. See Engel v. Vitale, supra. Cf. McCollum v. Board of Education, supra; Everson v. Board of Education, supra. Compare Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429 (1952), which involved the same substantive issues presented here. The appeal was there dismissed upon the graduation of the school child involved and because of the appellants' failure to establish standing as taxpayers.

[11] We are not of course presented with and therefore do not pass upon a situation such as military service, where the Government regulates the temporal and geographic environment of individuals to a point that, unless it permits voluntary religious services to be conducted with the use of government facilities, military personnel would be unable to engage in the practice of their faiths.

[12] See Bates, Religious Liberty: An Inquiry (1945), 9-14, 239-252; Cobb, Religious Liberty in America (1902), 1-2, cc. IV, V; Gledhill, Pakistan, The Development of its Laws and Constitution (8 British Commonwealth, 1957), 11-15: Keller, Church and State on the European Continent (1936), c. 2; Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom (1953), c. 2; I Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 151-169.

[13] See III Stokes, op. cit., supra, n. 1, 42-67; Bates, op. cit., supra, n. 1, 9-11, 58-59, 98, 245; Gledhill, op. cit., supra, n. 1, 128, 192, 205, 208; Rackman, Israel's Emerging Constitution (1955), 120-134; Drinan, Religious Freedom in Israel, America (Apr. 6, 1963), 456-457.

[14] See II Stokes, op. cit., supra, n. 1, 488-548; Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (2d ed. 1963), 4-10; Rackman, op. cit., supra, n. 2, at 136-141; O'Brien, The Engel Case From A Swiss Perspective, 61 Mich. L. Rev. 1069; Freund, Muslim Education in West Pakistan, 56 Religious Education 31.

[15] Bates, op. cit., supra, n. 1, at 18; Pfeffer, op. cit., supra, n. 1, at 28-31; Thomas, The Balance of Forces in Spain, 41 Foreign Affairs 208, 210.

[16] Cobb, op. cit., supra, n. 1, at 2.

[17] See II Stokes, op. cit., supra, n. 1, at 681-695.

[18] See Accountants' Handbook (4th ed. 1956) 4.8-4.15.

[19] Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, in 35 Great Books of the Western World (Hutchins ed. 1952), 2.

[20] Representative Daniel Carroll of Maryland during debate upon the proposed Bill of Rights in the First Congress, August 15, 1789, I Annals of Cong. 730.

[21] See Healey, Jefferson on Religion in Public Education (1962); Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 16-21; Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (1950), 119-130; Cahn, On Government and Prayer, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 981 (1962); Costanzo, Thomas Jefferson, Religious Education and Public Law, 8 J. Pub. Law 81 (1959); Comment, The Supreme Court, the First Amendment, and Religion in the Public Schools, 63 Col. L. Rev. 73, 79-83 (1963).

[22] Jefferson's caveat was in full:

"Instead, therefore, of putting the Bible and Testament into the hands of the children at an age when their judgments are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and American history." 2 Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial ed. 1903), 204.

Compare Jefferson's letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, when the latter was about to begin the study of law, in which Jefferson outlined a suggested course of private study of religion since "[y]our reason is now mature enough to examine this object." Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787, in Padover, The Complete Jefferson (1943), 1058. Jefferson seems to have opposed sectarian instruction at any level of public education, see Healey, Jefferson on Religion in Public Education (1962), 206-210, 256, 264-265. The absence of any mention of religious instruction in the projected elementary and secondary schools contrasts significantly with Jefferson's quite explicit proposals concerning religious instruction at the University of Virginia. His draft for "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge" in 1779, for example, outlined in some detail the secular curriculum for the public schools, while avoiding any references to religious studies. See Padover, supra, at 1048-1054. The later draft of an "Act for Establishing Elementary Schools" which Jefferson submitted to the Virginia General Assembly in 1817 provided that "no religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination." Padover, supra, at 1076. Reliance upon Jefferson's apparent willingness to permit certain religious instruction at the University seems, therefore, to lend little support to such instruction in the elementary and secondary schools. Compare, e.g., Corwin, A Constitution of Powers in a Secular State (1951), 104-106; Costanzo, Thomas Jefferson, Religious Education and Public Law, 8 J. Pub. Law 81, 100-106 (1959).

[23] Cf. Mr. Justice Rutledge's observations in Everson v. Board of Education,330 U. S. 1, 53-54 (dissenting opinion). See also Fellman, Separation of Church and State in the United States: A Summary View, 1950 Wis. L. Rev. 427, 428-429; Rosenfield, Separation of Church and State in the Public Schools, 22 U. of Pitt. L. Rev. 561, 569 (1961); MacKinnon, Freedom?—or Toleration? The Problem of Church and State in the United States, [1959] Pub. Law 374. One author has suggested these reasons for cautious application of the history of the Constitution's religious guarantees to contemporary problems:

"First, the brevity of Congressional debate and the lack of writings on the question by the framers make any historical argument inconclusive and open to serious question. Second, the amendment was designed to outlaw practices which had existed before its writing, but there is no authoritative declaration of the specific practices at which it was aimed. And third, most of the modern religious-freedom cases turn on issues which were at most academic in 1789 and perhaps did not exist at all. Public education was almost nonexistent in 1789, and the question of religious education in public schools may not have been foreseen." Beth, The American Theory of Church and State (1958), 88.

[24] See generally, for discussion of the early efforts for disestablishment of the established colonial churches, and of the conditions against which the proponents of separation of church and state contended, Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1950), c. XIII; Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), c. IX; Eckenrode, Separation of Church and State in Virginia (1910); Brant, James Madison—The Nationalist, 1780-1787 (1948), c. XXII; Bowers, The Young Jefferson (1945), 193-199; Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (1950), c. II; Kruse, The Historical Meaning and Judicial Construction of the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment, 2 Washburn L. J. 65, 79-83 (1962). Compare also Alexander Hamilton's conception of "the characteristic difference between a tolerated and established religion" and his grounds of opposition to the latter, in his remarks on the Quebec Bill in 1775, 2 Works of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton ed. 1850), 133-138. Compare, for the view that contemporary evidence reveals a design of the Framers to forbid not only formal establishment of churches, but various forms of incidental aid to or support of religion, Lardner, How Far Does the Constitution Separate Church and State? 45 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 110, 112-115 (1951).

[25] The origins of the modern movement for free state-supported education cannot be fixed with precision. In England, the Levellers unavailingly urged in their platform of 1649 the establishment of free primary education for all, or at least for boys. See Brailsford, The Levellers and the English Revolution (1961), 534. In the North American Colonies, education was almost without exception under private sponsorship and supervision, frequently under control of the dominant Protestant sects. This condition prevailed after the Revolution and into the first quarter of the nineteenth century. See generally Mason, Moral Values and Secular Education (1950), c. II; Thayer, The Role of the School in American Society (1960), c. X; Greene, Religion and the State: The Making and Testing of an American Tradition (1941), 120-122. Thus, Virginia's colonial Governor Berkeley exclaimed in 1671: "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world . . . ." (Emphasis deleted.) Bates, Religious Liberty: An Inquiry (1945), 327.

The exclusively private control of American education did not, however, quite survive Berkeley's expectations. Benjamin Franklin's proposals in 1749 for a Philadelphia Academy heralded the dawn of publicly supported secondary education, although the proposal did not bear immediate fruit. See Johnson and Yost, Separation of Church and State in the United States (1948), 26-27. Jefferson's elaborate plans for a public school system in Virginia came to naught after the defeat in 1796 of his proposed Elementary School Bill, which found little favor among the wealthier legislators. See Bowers, The Young Jefferson (1945), 182-186. It was not until the 1820's and 1830's under the impetus of Jacksonian democracy, that a system of public education really took root in the United States. See 1 Beard, The Rise of American Civilization (1937), 810-818. One force behind the development of secular public schools may have been a growing dissatisfaction with the tightly sectarian control over private education, see Harner, Religion's Place in General Education (1949), 29-30. Yet the burgeoning public school systems did not immediately supplant the old sectarian and private institutions; Alexis de Tocqueville, for example, remarked after his tour of the Eastern States in 1831 that "[a]lmost all education is entrusted to the clergy." 1 Democracy in America (Bradley ed. 1945) 309, n. 4. And compare Lord Bryce's observations, a half century later, on the still largely denominational character of American higher education, 2 The American Commonwealth (1933), 734-735.

Efforts to keep the public schools of the early nineteenth century free from sectarian influence were of two kinds. One took the form of constitutional provisions and statutes adopted by a number of States forbidding appropriations from the public treasury for the support of religious instruction in any manner. See Moehlman, The Wall of Separation Between Church and State (1951), 132-135; Lardner, How Far Does the Constitution Separate Church and State? 45 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 110, 122 (1951). The other took the form of measures directed against the use of sectarian reading and teaching materials in the schools. The texts used in the earliest public schools had been largely taken over from the private academies, and retained a strongly religious character and content. See Nichols, Religion and American Democracy (1959), 64-80; Kinney, Church and State, The Struggle for Separation in New Hampshire, 1630-1900 (1955), 150-153. In 1827, however, Massachusetts enacted a statute providing that school boards might not thereafter "direct any school books to be purchased or used, in any of the schools . . . which are calculated to favor any particular religious sect or tenet." 2 Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 53. For further discussion of the background of the Massachusetts law and difficulties in its early application, see Dunn, What Happened to Religious Education? (1958), c. IV. As other States followed the example of Massachusetts, the use of sectarian texts was in time as widely prohibited as the appropriation of public funds for religious instruction.

Concerning the evolution of the American public school systems free of sectarian influence, compare Mr. Justice Frankfurter's account:

"It is pertinent to remind that the establishment of this principle of Separation in the field of education was not due to any decline in the religious beliefs of the people. Horace Mann was a devout Christian, and the deep religious feeling of James Madison is stamped upon the Remonstrance. The secular public school did not imply indifference to the basic role of religion in the life of the people, nor rejection of religious education as a means of fostering it. The claims of religion were not minimized by refusing to make the public schools agencies for their assertion. The non-sectarian or secular public school was the means of reconciling freedom in general with religious freedom. The sharp confinement of the public schools to secular education was a recognition of the need of a democratic society to educate its children, insofar as the State undertook to do so, in an atmosphere free from pressures in a realm in which pressures are most resisted and where conflicts are most easily and most bitterly engendered." Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 216.

[26] The comparative religious homogeneity of the United States at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted has been considered in Haller, The Puritan Background of the First Amendment, in Read ed., The Constitution Reconsidered (1938), 131, 133-134; Beth, The American Theory of Church and State (1958), 74; Kinney, Church and State, The Struggle for Separation in New Hampshire, 1630-1900 (1955), 155-161. However, Madison suggested in the Fifty-first Federalist that the religious diversity which existed at the time of the Constitutional Convention constituted a source of strength for religious freedom, much as the multiplicity of economic and political interests enhanced the security of other civil rights. The Federalist (Cooke ed. 1961), 351-352.

[27] See Comment, The Power of Courts Over the Internal Affairs of Religious Groups, 43 Calif. L. Rev. 322 (1955); Comment, Judicial Intervention in Disputes Within Independent Church Bodies, 54 Mich. L. Rev. 102 (1955); Note, Judicial Intervention in Disputes Over the Use of Church Property, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 1142 (1962). Compare Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 2 How. 127. . The principle of judicial nonintervention in essentially religious disputes appears to have been reflected in the decisions of several state courts declining to enforce essentially private agreements concerning the religious education and worship of children of separated or divorced parents. See, e.g., Hackett v. Hackett, 78 Ohio Abs. 485, 150 N. E. 2d 431; Stanton v. Stanton,213 Ga. 545, 100 S. E. 2d 289; Friedman, The Parental Right to Control the Religious Education of a Child, 29 Harv. L. Rev. 485 (1916); 72 Harv. L. Rev. 372 (1958); Note, 10 West. Res. L. Rev. 171 (1959).

Governmental nonintervention in religious affairs and institutions seems assured by Article 26 of the Constitution of India, which provides:

"Subject to public order, morality and health, every religious denomination or any section thereof shall have the right—

"(a) to establish and maintain institutions for religious and charitable purposes;

"(b) to manage its own affairs in matters of religion;

"(c) to own and acquire movable and immovable property; and

"(d) to administer such property in accordance with law." See 1 Chaudhri, Constitutional Rights and Limitations (1955), 875. This Article does not, however, appear to have completely foreclosed judicial inquiry into the merits of intradenominational disputes. See Gledhill, Fundamental Rights in India (1955), 101-102.

[28] For a discussion of the difficulties inherent in the Ballard case, see Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 75-79. This Court eventually reversed the convictions on the quite unrelated ground that women had been systematically excluded from the jury, Ballard v. United States, 329 U. S. 187. For discussions of the difficulties in interpreting and applying the First Amendment so as to foster the objective of neutrality without hostility, see, e.g., Katz, Freedom of Religion and State Neutrality, 20 U. of Chi. L. Rev. 426, 438 (1953); Kauper, Church, State, and Freedom: A Review, 52 Mich. L. Rev. 829, 842 (1954). Compare, for an interesting apparent attempt to avoid the Ballard problem at the international level, Article 3 of the Multilateral Treaty between the United States and certain American Republics, which provides that extradition will not be granted, inter alia, when "the offense is . . . directed against religion." Blakely, American State Papers and Related Documents of Freedom in Religion (4th rev. ed. 1949), 316.

[29] See Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 32-34.

[30]Compare the treatment of an apparently very similar problem in Article 28 of the Constitution of India:

"(1) No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds.

"(2) Nothing in clause (1) shall apply to an educational institution which is administered by the State but has been established under any endowment or trust which requires that religious instruction shall be imparted in such institution." 1 Chaudhri, Constitutional Rights and Limitations (1955), 875-876, 939.

[31] See Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 28-31; Fellman, Separation of Church and State in the United States: A Summary View, 1950 Wis. L. Rev. 427, 442.

[32] This distinction, implicit in the First Amendment, had been made explicit in the original Virginia Bill of Rights provision that "all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless under color of religion any man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society." See Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), 491. Concerning various legislative limitations and restraints upon religiously motivated behavior which endangers or offends society, see Manwaring, Render Unto Caesar: The Flag-Salute Controversy (1962), 41-52. Various courts have applied this principle to proscribe certain religious exercises or activities which were thought to threaten the safety or morals of the participants or the rest of the community, e.g., State v. Massey, 229 N. C. 734, 51 S. E. 2d 179; Harden v. State, 188 Tenn. 17, 216 S. W. 2d 708; Lawson v. Commonwealth, 291 Ky. 437, 164 S. W. 2d 972; cf. Sweeney v. Webb,33 Tex. Civ. App. 324, 76 S. W. 766.

That the principle of these cases, and the distinction between belief and behavior, are susceptible of perverse application, may be suggested by Oliver Cromwell's mandate to the besieged Catholic community in Ireland:

"As to freedom of conscience, I meddle with no man's conscience; but if you mean by that, liberty to celebrate the Mass, I would have you understand that in no place where the power of the Parliament of England prevails shall that be permitted." Quoted in Hook, The Paradoxes of Freedom (1962), 23.

[33] With respect to the decision in Hamilton v. Regents, compare two recent comments: Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 40; and French, Comment, Unconstitutional Conditions: An Analysis, 50 Geo. L. J. 234, 246 (1961).

[34] See generally as to the background and history of the Barnette case, Manwaring, Render Unto Caesar: The Flag-Salute Controversy (1962), especially at 252-253. Compare, for the interesting treatment of a problem similar to that of Barnette, in a nonconstitutional context, Chabot v. Les Commissaires D'Ecoles de Lamorandiere, [1957] Que. B. R. 707, noted in 4 McGill L. J. 268 (1958).

[35] See Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243; Permoli v. New Orleans, 3 How. 589, 609; cf. Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 434-435; Withers v. Buckley, 20 How. 84, 89-91. As early as 1825, however, at least one commentator argued that the guarantees of the Bill of Rights, excepting only those of the First and Seventh Amendments, were meant to limit the powers of the States. Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America (1825), 120-130.

[36] In addition to the statement of this Court in Meyer, at least one state court assumed as early as 1921 that claims of abridgment of the free exercise of religion in the public schools must be tested under the guarantees of the First Amendment as well as those of the state constitution. Hardwick v. Board of School Trustees, 54 Cal. App. 696, 704-705, 205 P. 49, 52. See Louisell and Jackson, Religion, Theology, and Public Higher Education, 50 Cal. L. Rev. 751, 772 (1962). Even before the Fourteenth Amendment, New York State enacted a general common school law in 1844 which provided that no religious instruction should be given which could be construed to violate the rights of conscience "as secured by the constitution of this state and the United States." N. Y. Laws, 1844, c. 320, § 12.

[37] See, e.g., Snee, Religious Disestablishment and the Fourteenth Amendment, 1954 Wash. U. L. Q. 371, 373-394; Kruse, The Historical Meaning and Judicial Construction of the Establishment of Religion Clause of the First Amendment, 2 Washburn L. J. 65, 84-85, 127-130 (1962); Katz, Religion and American Constitutions, Address at Northwestern University Law School, March 20, 1963, pp. 6-7. But see the debate in the Constitutional Convention over the question whether it was necessary or advisable to include among the enumerated powers of the Congress a power "to establish an University, in which no preferences or distinctions should be allowed on account of religion." At least one delegate thought such an explicit delegation "is not necessary," for "[t]he exclusive power at the Seat of Government, will reach the object." The proposal was defeated by only two votes. 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (1911), 616.

[38] The last formal establishment, that of Massachusetts, was dissolved in 1833. The process of disestablishment in that and other States is described in Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902), c. X; Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1950), c. XIII. The greater relevance of conditions existing at the time of adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment is suggested in Note, State Sunday Laws and the Religious Guarantees of the Federal Constitution, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 729, 739, n. 79 (1960).

[39]See Corwin, A Constitution of Powers in a Secular State (1951), 111-114; Fairman and Morrison, Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights? 2 Stan. L. Rev. 5 (1949); Meyer, Comment, The Blaine Amendment and the Bill of Rights, 64 Harv. L. Rev. 939 (1951); Howe, Religion and Race in Public Education, 8 Buffalo L. Rev. 242, 245-247 (1959). Cf. Cooley, Principles of Constitutional Law (2d ed. 1891), 213-214. Compare Professor Freund's comment:

"Looking back, it is hard to see how the Court could have done otherwise, how it could have persisted in accepting freedom of contract as a guaranteed liberty without giving equal status to freedom of press and speech, assembly, and religious observance. What does not seem so inevitable is the inclusion within the Fourteenth Amendment of the concept of nonestablishment of religion in the sense of forbidding nondiscriminatory aid to religion, where there is no interference with freedom of religious exercise." Freund, The Supreme Court of the United States (1961), 58-59.

[40] The Blaine Amendment, 4 Cong. Rec. 5580, included also a more explicit provision that "no money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any religious sect or denomination . . . ." The Amendment passed the House but failed to obtain the requisite two-thirds vote in the Senate. See 4 Cong. Rec. 5595. The prohibition which the Blaine Amendment would have engrafted onto the American Constitution has been incorporated in the constitutions of other nations; compare Article 28 (1) of the Constitution of India ("No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds"); Article XX of the Constitution of Japan (". . . the State and its organs shall refrain from religious education or any other religious activity"). See 1 Chaudhri, Constitutional Rights and Limitations (1955), 875, 876.

[41] Three years after the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, Mr. Justice Bradley wrote a letter expressing his views on a proposed constitutional amendment designed to acknowledge the dependence of the Nation upon God, and to recognize the Bible as the foundation of its laws and the supreme ruler of its conduct:

"I have never been able to see the necessity or expediency of the movement for obtaining such an amendment. The Constitution was evidently framed and adopted by the people of the United States with the fixed determination to allow absolute religious freedom and equality, and to avoid all appearance even of a State religion, or a State endorsement of any particular creed or religious sect. . . . And after the Constitution in its original form was adopted, the people made haste to secure an amendment that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. This shows the earnest desire of our Revolutionary fathers that religion should be left to the free and voluntary action of the people themselves. I do not regard it as manifesting any hostility to religion, but as showing a fixed determination to leave the people entirely free on the subject.

"And it seems to me that our fathers were wise; that the great voluntary system of this country is quite as favorable to the promotion of real religion as the systems of governmental protection and patronage have been in other countries. And whilst I do not understand that the association which you represent desire to invoke any governmental interference, still the amendment sought is a step in that direction which our fathers (quite as good Christians as ourselves) thought it wise not to take. In this country they thought they had settled one thing at least, that it is not the province of government to teach theology.

". . . Religion, as the basis and support of civil government, must reside, not in the written Constitution, but in the people themselves. And we cannot legislate religion into the people. It must be infused by gentler and wiser methods." Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph P. Bradley (1901), 357-359.

For a later phase of the controversy over such a constitutional amendment as that which Justice Bradley opposed, see Finlator, Christ in Congress, 4 J. Church and State 205 (1962).

[42] There is no doubt that, whatever "establishment" may have meant to the Framers of the First Amendment in 1791, the draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment three quarters of a century later understood the Establishment Clause to foreclose many incidental forms of governmental aid to religion which fell far short of the creation or support of an official church. The Report of a Senate Committee as early as 1853, for example, contained this view of the Establishment Clause:

"If Congress has passed, or should pass, any law which, fairly construed, has in any degree introduced, or should attempt to introduce, in favor of any church, or ecclesiastical association, or system of religious faith, all or any one of these obnoxious particulars—endowment at the public expense, peculiar privileges to its members, or disadvantages or penalties upon those who should reject its doctrines or belong to other communions—such law would be a `law respecting an establishment of religion,' and, therefore, in violation of the constitution." S. Rep. No. 376, 32d Cong., 2d Sess. 1-2.

Compare Thomas M. Cooley's exposition in the year in which the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified:

"Those things which are not lawful under any of the American constitutions may be stated thus:—

"1. Any law respecting an establishment of religion. . . .

"2. Compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of religious instruction. . Not only is no one denomination to be favored at the expense of the rest, but all support of religious instruction must be entirely voluntary." Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (1st ed. 1868), 469.

[43] Compare, e.g., Miller, Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition (1953), 83, with Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, reprinted as an Appendix to the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Rutledge, Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 63-72. See also Cahn, On Government and Prayer, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 981, 982-985 (1962); Jefferson's Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in Padover, The Complete Jefferson (1943), 946-947; Moulton and Myers, Report on Appointing Chaplains to the Legislature of New York, in Blau, Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America (1949), 141-156; Bury, A History of Freedom of Thought (2d ed. 1952), 75-76.

[44] See, e.g., Spicer, The Supreme Court and Fundamental Freedoms (1959), 83-84; Kauper, Church, State, and Freedom: A Review, 52 Mich. L. Rev. 829, 839 (1954); Reed, Church-State and the Zorach Case, 27 Notre Dame Lawyer 529, 539-541 (1952).

[45] See 343 U. S., at 321-322 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 89. I recognize that there is a question whether in Zorach the free exercise claims asserted were in fact proved. 343 U. S., at 311.

[46] Mr. Justice Frankfurter described the effects of the McCollumprogram thus:

"Religious education so conducted on school time and property is patently woven into the working scheme of the school. The Champaign arrangement thus presents powerful elements of inherent pressure by the school system in the interest of religious sects. . . . As a result, the public school system of Champaign actively furthers inculcation in the religious tenets of some faiths, and in the process sharpens the consciousness of religious differences at least among some of the children committed to its care." 333 U. S., at 227-228.

For similar reasons some state courts have enjoined the public schools from employing or accepting the services of members of religious orders even in the teaching of secular subjects, e.g., Zellers v. Huff, 55 N. M. 501, 236 P. 2d 949; Berghorn v. Reorganized School Dist. No. 8, 364 Mo. 121, 260 S. W. 2d 573; compare ruling of Texas Commissioner of Education, Jan. 25, 1961, in 63 American Jewish Yearbook (1962), 188. Over a half century ago a New York court sustained a school board's exclusion from the public schools of teachers wearing religious garb on similar grounds:

"Then all through the school hours these teachers . . . were before the children as object lessons of the order and church of which they were members. It is within our common observation that young children . . . are very susceptible to the influence of their teachers and of the kind of object lessons continually before them in schools conducted under these circumstances and with these surroundings." O'Connor v. Hendrick, 109 App. Div. 361, 371-372, 96 N. Y. Supp. 161, 169. See also Commonwealth v. Herr, 229 Pa. 132, 78 A. 68; Comment, Religious Garb in the Public Schools—A Study in Conflicting Liberties, 22 U. of Chi. L. Rev. 888 (1955).

Also apposite are decisions of several courts which have enjoined the use of parochial schools as part of the public school system, Harfst v. Hoegen, 349 Mo. 808, 163 S. W. 2d 609; or have invalidated programs for the distribution in public school classrooms of Gideon Bibles, Brown v. Orange County Board of Public Instruction, 128 So. 2d 181 (Fla. App.); Tudor v. Board of Education, 14 N. J. 31, 100 A. 2d 857. See Note, The First Amendment and Distribution of Religious Literature in the Public Schools, 41 Va. L. Rev. 789, 803-806 (1955). In Tudor, the court stressed the role of the public schools in the Bible program:

". . . the public school machinery is used to bring about the distribution of these Bibles to the children . . . . In the eyes of the pupils and their parents the board of education has placed its stamp of approval upon this distribution and, in fact, upon the Gideon Bible itself. . . . This is more than mere `accommodation' of religion permitted in the Zorach case. The school's part in this distribution is an active one and cannot be sustained on the basis of a mere assistance to religion." 14 N. J., at 51-52, 100 A. 2d, at 868.

The significance of the teacher's authority was recognized by one early state court decision:

"The school being in session, the right to command was vested in the teacher, and the duty of obedience imposed upon the pupils. Under such circumstances a request and a command have the same meaning. A request from one in authority is understood to be a mere euphemism. It is in fact a command in an inoffensive form." State ex rel. Freeman v. Scheve, 65 Neb. 876, 880, 93 N. W. 169, 170.

[47] See for other illustrations of the principle that where First Amendment freedoms are or may be affected, government must employ those means which will least inhibit the exercise of constitutional liberties, Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 161; Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141; Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558; Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U. S. 479, 488-489; Bantam Books, Inc., v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 66, 69-71. See also Note, State Sunday Laws and the Religious Guarantees of the Federal Constitution, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 729, 743-745 (1960); Freund, The Supreme Court of the United States (1961), 86-87; 74 Harv. L. Rev. 613 (1961). And compare Miller v. Cooper, 56 N. M. 355, 244 P. 2d 520 (1952), in which a state court permitted the holding of public school commencement exercises in a church building only because no public buildings in the community were adequate to accommodate the ceremony.

[48] No question has been raised in these cases concerning the standing of these parents to challenge the religious practices conducted in the schools which their children presently attend. Whatever authority Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429, might have on the question of the standing of one not the parent of children affected by the challenged exercises is not before us in these cases. Neither in McCollum nor in Zorach was there any reason to question the standing of the parent-plaintiffs under settled principles of justiciability and jurisdiction, whether or not their complaints alleged pecuniary loss or monetary injury. The free-exercise claims of the parents alleged injury sufficient to give them standing. If, however, the gravamen of the lawsuit were exclusively one of establishment, it might seem illogical to confer standing upon a parent who—though he is concededly in the best position to assert a free-exercise claim— suffers no financial injury, by reason of being a parent, different from that of the ordinary taxpayer, whose standing may be open to question. See Sutherland, Establishment According to Engel, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 25, 41-43 (1962). I would suggest several answers to this conceptual difficulty. First, the parent is surely the person most directly and immediately concerned about and affected by the challenged establishment, and to deny him standing either in his own right or on behalf of his child might effectively foreclose judicial inquiry into serious breaches of the prohibitions of the First Amendment —even though no special monetary injury could be shown. See Schempp v. School District of Abington Township, 177 F. Supp. 398, 407; Kurland, The Regents' Prayer Case: "Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying . . . ," 1962 Supreme Court Review 1, 22. Second, the complaint in every case thus far challenging an establishment has set forth at least a colorable claim of infringement of free exercise. When the complaint includes both claims, and neither is frivolous, it would surely be overtechnical to say that a parent who does not detail the monetary cost of the exercises to him may ask the court to pass only upon the free-exercise claim, however logically the two may be related. Cf. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33, 38-39; NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 458-460; Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678; Bantam Books, Inc., v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 64, n. 6. Finally, the concept of standing is a necessarily flexible one, designed principally to ensure that the plaintiffs have "such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions . . . ." Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204. It seems to me that even a cursory examination of the complaints in these two cases and the opinions below discloses that these parents have very real grievances against the respective school authorities which cannot be resolved short of constitutional adjudication. See generally Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Conference: Public Aid to Parochial Schools and Standing to Bring Suit, 12 Buffalo L. Rev. 35 (1962); Jaffe, Standing to Secure Judicial Review: Public Actions, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1265 (1961); Sutherland, Due Process and Disestablishment, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 1306, 1327-1332 (1949); Comment, The Supreme Court, the First Amendment, and Religion in the Public Schools, 63 Col. L. Rev. 73, 94, n. 153 (1963).

[49] Quoted in Dunn, What Happened to Religious Education? (1958), 21.

[50] Quoted, id., at 22.

[51] Quoted in Hartford, Moral Values in Public Education: Lessons From the Kentucky Experience (1958), 31.

[52] See Culver, Horace Mann and Religion in the Massachusetts Public Schools (1929), for an account of one prominent educator's efforts to satisfy both the protests of those who opposed continuation of sectarian lessons and exercises in public schools, and the demands of those who insisted upon the retention of some essentially religious practices. Mann's continued use of the Bible for what he regarded as nonsectarian exercises represented his response to these cross-pressures. See Mann, Religious Education, in Blau, Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America (1949), 163-201 (from the Twelfth Annual Report for 1848 of the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts). See also Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 22-27.

[53] See 2 Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 572-579; Greene, Religion and the State: The Making and Testing of an American Tradition (1941), 122-126.

[54] E.g., Ala. Code, Tit. 52, § 542; Del. Code Ann., Tit. 14, §§ 4101-4102; Fla. Stat. Ann. § 231.09 (2); Mass. Ann. Laws, c. 71, § 31; Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-1307 (4). Some statutes, like the recently amended Pennsylvania statute involved in Schempp,provide for the excusal or exemption of children whose parents do not wish them to participate. See generally Johnson and Yost, Separation of Church and State in the United States (1948), 33-36; Thayer, The Role of the School in American Society (1960), 374-375; Beth, The American Theory of Church and State (1958), 106-107. Compare with the American statutory approach Article 28 (3) of the Constitution of India:

"(3) No person attending any educational institution recognised by the State or receiving aid out of State funds shall be required to take part in any religious instruction that may be imparted in such institution or to attend any religious worship that may be conducted in such institution or in any premises attached thereto unless such person or, if such person is a minor, his guardian has given his consent thereto." See 1 Chaudhri, Constitutional Rights and Limitations (1955), 876, 939.

[55] See note 34, supra.

[56] Quoted from New Hampshire School Reports, 1850, 31-32, in Kinney, Church and State: The Struggle for Separation in New Hampshire, 1630-1900 (1955), 157-158.

[57] Quoted in Boyer, Religious Education of Public School Pupils in Wisconsin, 1953 Wis. L. Rev. 181, 186.

[58] Quoted in Dunn, What Happened to Religious Education? (1958), 271.

[59] Quoted in Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (1950), 135-136.

[60] See Board of Education v. Minor, 23 Ohio St. 211; Blakely, American State Papers and Related Documents on Freedom in Religion (4th rev. ed. 1949), 864.

[61] Report of the United States Commissioner of Education for the Year 1888-1889, part I, H. R. Exec. Doc. No. 1, part 5, 51st Cong., 1st Sess. 627.

[62] Quoted in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, supra, at 218 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). See also President Grant's Annual Message to Congress, Dec. 7, 1875, 4 Cong. Rec. 175 et seq., which apparently inspired the drafting and submission of the Blaine Amendment. See Meyer, Comment, The Blaine Amendment and the Bill of Rights, 64 Harv. L. Rev. 939 (1951).

[63] Theodore Roosevelt to Michael A. Schaap, Feb. 22, 1915, 8 Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Morison ed. 1954), 893.

[64] Quoted in Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 238.

[65] E.g., 1955 Op. Ariz. Atty. Gen. 67; 26 Ore. Op. Atty. Gen. 46 (1952); 25 Cal. Op. Atty. Gen. 316 (1955); 1948-1950 Nev. Atty. Gen. Rep. 69 (1948). For a 1961 opinion of the Attorney General of Michigan to the same effect, see 63 American Jewish Yearbook (1962) 189. In addition to the Governor of Ohio, see note 46, supra, a Governor of Arizona vetoed a proposed law which would have permitted "reading the Bible, without comment, except to teach Historical or Literary facts." See 2 Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 568.

[66] See Johnson and Yost, Separation of Church and State in the United States (1948), 71; Note, Bible Reading in Public Schools, 9 Vand. L. Rev. 849, 851 (1956).

[67] E.g., Spiller v. Inhabitants of Woburn, 12 Allen (Mass.) 127 (1866); Donahoe v. Richards, 38 Maine 376, 413 (1854); cf. Ferriter v. Tyler, 48 Vt. 444, 471-472 (1876).

[68] Board of Education v. Minor, 23 Ohio St. 211 (1873).

[69] People ex rel. Ring v. Board of Education, 245 Ill. 334, 92 N. E. 251 (1910); Herold v. Parish Board of School Directors, 136 La. 1034, 68 So. 116 (1915); State ex rel. Weiss v. District Board, 76 Wis. 177, 44 N. W. 967 (1890); State ex rel. Finger v. Weedman, 55 S. D. 343, 226 N. W. 348 (1929); State ex rel. Dearle v. Frazier, 102 Wash. 369, 173 P. 35 (1918); cf. State ex rel. Clithero v. Showalter, 159 Wash. 519, 293 P. 1000 (1930); State ex rel. Freeman v. Scheve, 65 Neb. 853, 91 N. W. 846 (1902), modified, 65 Neb. 876, 93 N. W. 169 (1903). The cases are discussed in Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), c. IV; Harrison, The Bible, the Constitution and Public Education, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 363, 386-389 (1962).

[70] Moore v. Monroe, 64 Iowa 367, 20 N. W. 475 (1884); Hackett v. Brooksville Graded School District, 120 Ky. 608, 87 S. W. 792 (1905); Billard v. Board of Education, 69 Kan. 53, 76 P. 422 (1904); Pfeiffer v. Board of Education, 118 Mich. 560, 77 N. W. 250 (1898); Kaplan v. School District, 171 Minn. 142, 214 N. W. 18 (1927); Lewis v. Board of Education, 157 Misc. 520, 285 N. Y. Supp. 164 (Sup. Ct. 1935), modified on other grounds, 247 App. Div. 106, 286 N. Y. Supp. 174 (1936), appeal dismissed, 276 N. Y. 490, 12 N. E. 2d 172 (1937); Doremus v. Board of Education, 5 N. J. 435, 75 A. 2d 880 (1950), appeal dismissed, 342 U. S. 429; Church v. Bullock, 104 Tex. 1, 109 S. W. 115 (1908); People ex rel. Vollmar v. Stanley, 81 Colo. 276, 255 P. 610 (1927); Wilkerson v. City of Rome, 152 Ga. 762, 110 S. E. 895 (1922); Carden v. Bland, 199 Tenn. 665, 288 S. W. 2d 718 (1956); Chamberlin v. Dade County Board of Public Instruction, 143 So. 2d 21 (Fla. 1962).

[71] For discussion of the constitutional and statutory provisions involved in the state cases which sustained devotional exercises in the public schools, see Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), c. III; Harrison, The Bible, the Constitution and Public Education, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 363, 381-385 (1962); Fellman, Separation of Church and State in the United States: A Summary View, 1950 Wis. L. Rev. 427, 450-452; Note, Bible Reading in Public Schools, 9 Vand. L. Rev. 849, 854-859 (1956); Note, Nineteenth Century Judicial Thought Concerning Church-State Relations, 40 Minn. L. Rev. 672, 675-678 (1956). State courts appear to have been increasingly influenced in sustaining devotional practices by the availability of an excuse or exemption for dissenting students. See Cushman, The Holy Bible and the Public Schools, 40 Cornell L. Q. 475, 477 (1955); 13 Vand. L. Rev. 552 (1960).

[72] See Rosenfield, Separation of Church and State in the Public Schools, 22 U. of Pitt. L. Rev. 561, 571-572 (1961); Harrison, The Bible, the Constitution and Public Education, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 363, 399-400 (1962); 30 Ford. L. Rev. 801, 803 (1962); 45 Va. L. Rev. 1381 (1959). The essentially religious character of the materials used in these exercises is, in fact, strongly suggested by the presence of excusal or exemption provisions, and by the practice of rotating or alternating the use of different prayers and versions of the Holy Bible.

[73] In the Billardcase, the teacher whose use of the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm was before the court testified that the exercise served disciplinary rather than spiritual purposes:

"It is necessary to have some general exercise after the children come in from the playground to prepare them for their work. You need some general exercise to quiet them down."

When asked again if the purpose were not at least partially religious, the teacher replied, "[i]t was religious to the children that are religious, and to the others it was not." 69 Kan., at 57-58, 76 P., at 423.

[74] See, e.g.,Henry, The Place of Religion in Public Schools (1950); Martin, Our Public Schools—Christian or Secular (1952); Educational Policies Comm'n of the National Educational Assn., Moral and Spiritual Values in the Public Schools (1951), c. IV; Harner, Religion's Place in General Education (1949). Educators are by no means unanimous, however, on this question. See Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 223-224. Compare George Washington's advice in his Farewell Address:

"And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." 35 Writings of George Washington (Fitzpatrick ed. 1940), 229.

[75] Thomas Jefferson's insistence that where the judgments of young children "are not sufficiently matured for religious inquiries, their memories may here be stored with the most useful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and American history," 2 Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial ed. 1903), 204, is relevant here. Recent proposals have explored the possibility of commencing the school day "with a quiet moment that would still the tumult of the playground and start a day of study," Editorial, Washington Post, June 28, 1962, § A, p. 22, col. 2. See also New York Times, Aug. 30, 1962, § 1, p. 18, col. 2. For a consideration of these and other alternative proposals see Choper, Religion in the Public Schools: A Proposed Constitutional Standard, 47 Minn. L. Rev. 329, 370-371 (1963). See also 2 Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 571.

[76] The history, as it bears particularly upon the role of sectarian differences concerning Biblical texts and interpretation, has been summarized in Tudor v. Board of Education, 14 N. J. 31, 36-44, 100 A. 2d 857, 859-864. See also State ex rel. Weiss v. District Board,76 Wis. 177, 190-193, 44 N. W. 967, 972-975. One state court adverted to these differences a half century ago:

"The Bible, in its entirety, is a sectarian book as to the Jew and every believer in any religion other than the Christian religion, and as to those who are heretical or who hold beliefs that are not regarded as orthodox . . . its use in the schools necessarily results in sectarian instruction. There are many sects of Christians, and their differences grow out of their differing constructions of various parts of the Scriptures —the different conclusions drawn as to the effect of the same words. The portions of Scripture which form the basis of these sectarian differences cannot be thoughtfully and intelligently read without impressing the reader, favorably or otherwise, with reference to the doctrines supposed to be derived from them." People ex rel. Ring v. Board of Education, 245 Ill. 334, 347-348, 92 N. E. 251, 255. But see, for a sharply critical comment, Schofield, Religious Liberty and Bible Reading in Illinois Public Schools, 6 Ill. L. Rev. 17 (1911).

See also Dunn, What Happened to Religious Education? (1958), 268-273; Dawson, America's Way in Church, State, and Society (1953), 53-54; Johnson and Yost, Separation of Church and State in the United States (1948), c. IV; Harpster, Religion, Education and the Law, 36 Marquette L. Rev. 24, 44-45 (1952); 20 Ohio State L. J. 701, 702-703 (1959).

[77] See Torcaso v. Watkins, supra,at 495, n. 11; Cushman, The Holy Bible and the Public Schools, 40 Cornell L. Q. 475, 480-483 (1955); Note, Separation of Church and State: Religious Exercises in the Schools, 31 U. of Cinc. L. Rev. 408, 411-412 (1962). Few religious persons today would share the universality of the Biblical canons of John Quincy Adams:

"You ask me what Bible I take as the standard of my faith—the Hebrew, the Samaritan, the old English translation, or what? I answer, the Bible containing the sermon upon the mount—any Bible that I can read and understand. . . . I take any one of them for my standard of faith. If Socinus or Priestley had made a fair translation of the Bible, I would have taken that, but without their comments." John Quincy Adams to John Adams, Jan. 3, 1817, in Koch and Peden, Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams (1946), 292.

[78] Rabbi Solomon Grayzel testified before the District Court, "In Judaism the Bible is not read, it is studied. There is no special virtue attached to a mere reading of the Bible; there is a great deal of virtue attached to a study of the Bible." See Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 208-218; Choper, Religion in the Public Schools: A Proposed Constitutional Standard, 47 Minn. L. Rev. 329, 372-375 (1963). One religious periodical has suggested the danger that "an observance of this sort is likely to deteriorate quickly into an empty formality with little, if any, spiritual significance. Prescribed forms of this sort, as many colleges have concluded after years of compulsory chapel attendance, can actually work against the inculcation of vital religion." Prayers in Public Schools Opposed, 69 Christian Century, Jan. 9, 1952, p. 35.

[79] See Cahn, On Government and Prayer, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 981, 993-994 (1962). A leading Protestant journal recently noted:

"Agitation for removal of religious practices in public schools is not prompted or supported entirely by Jews, humanists, and atheists. At both local and national levels, many Christian leaders, concerned both for civil rights of minorities and for adequate religious education, are opposed to religious exercises in public schools. . . . Many persons, both Jews and Christians, believe that prayer and Bible reading are too sacred to be permitted in public schools in spite of their possible moral value." Smith, The Religious Crisis In Our Schools, 128 The Episcopalian, May 1963, pp. 12-13. See, e.g., for other recent statements on this question, Editorial, Amending the Amendment, 108 America, May 25, 1963, p. 736; Sissel, A Christian View: Behind the Fight Against School Prayer, 27 Look, June 18, 1963, p. 25.

It should be unnecessary to demonstrate that the Lord's Prayer, more clearly than the Regents' Prayer involved in Engel v. Vitale, is an essentially Christian supplication. See, e.g., Scott, The Lord's Prayer: Its Character, Purpose, and Interpretation (1951), 55: Buttrick, So We Believe, So We Pray (1951), 142; Levy, Lord's Prayer, in 7 Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (1948), 192-193.

[80] Statement of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, in 4 J. Church and State 144 (1962).

[81] See Harrison, The Bible, the Constitution and Public Education, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 363, 397 (1962). The application of statutes and regulations which forbid comment on scriptural passages is further complicated by the view of certain religious groups that reading without comment is either meaningless or actually offensive. Compare Rabbi Grayzel's testimony before the District Court that "the Bible is misunderstood when it is taken without explanation." A recent survey of the attitudes of certain teachers disclosed concern that "refusal to answer pupil questions regarding any curricular activity is not educationally sound," and that reading without comment might create in the minds of the pupils the impression that something was "hidden or wrong." Boles, The Bible, Religion, and the Public Schools (1961), 235-236. Compare the comment of a foreign observer: "In no other field of learning would we expect a child to draw the full meaning from what he reads without accompanying explanatory comment. But comment by the teacher will inevitably reveal his own personal preferences; and the exhibition of preferences is what we are seeking to eliminate." MacKinnon, Freedom? —or Toleration? The Problem of Church and State in the United States, [1959] Pub. Law 374, 383.

[82] See Abbott, A Common Bible Reader for Public Schools, 56 Religious Education 20 (1961); Note, 22 Albany L. Rev. 156-157 (1958); 2 Stokes, Church and State in the United States (1950), 501-506 (describing the "common denominator" or "three faiths" plan and certain programs of instruction designed to implement the "common core" approach). The attempts to evolve a universal, nondenominational prayer are by no means novel. See, e.g., Madison's letter to Edward Everett, March 19, 1823, commenting upon a "project of a prayer . . . intended to comprehend & conciliate College Students of every [Christian] denomination, by a Form composed wholly of texts & phrases of scripture." 9 Writings of James Madison (Hunt ed. 1910), 126. For a fuller description of this and other attempts to fashion a "common core" or nonsectarian exercise, see Engel v. Vitale, 18 Misc. 2d 659, 660-662, 191 N. Y. S. 2d 453, 459-460.

[83] See the policy statement recently drafted by the National Council of the Churches of Christ: ". . . neither true religion nor good education is dependent upon the devotional use of the Bible in the public school program. . . . Apart from the constitutional questions involved, attempts to establish a `common core' of religious beliefs to be taught in public schools for the purpose of indoctrination are unrealistic and unwise. Major faith groups have not agreed on a formulation of religious beliefs common to all. Even if they had done so, such a body of religious doctrine would tend to become a substitute for the more demanding commitments of historic faiths." Washington Post, May 25, 1963, § A, p. 1, col. 4. See also Choper, Religion in the Public Schools: A Proposed Constitutional Standard, 47 Minn. L. Rev. 329, 341, 368-369 (1963). See also Hartford, Moral Values in Public Education: Lessons from the Kentucky Experience (1958), 261-262; Moehlman, The Wall of Separation Between Church and State (1951), 158-159. Cf. Mosk, "Establishment Clause" Clarified, 22 Law in Transition 231, 235-236 (1963).

[84] Quoted in Kurland, The Regents' Prayer Case: "Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying . . . ," 1962 Supreme Court Review (1962), 1, 31.

[85] Quoted in Harrison, The Bible, the Constitution and Public Education, 29 Tenn. L. Rev. 363, 417 (1962). See also Dawson, America's Way in Church, State, and Society (1953), 54.

[86] See the testimony of Edward L. Schempp, the father of the children in the Abington schools and plaintiff-appellee in No. 142, concerning his reasons for not asking that his children be excused from the morning exercises after excusal was made available through amendment of the statute:

"We originally objected to our children being exposed to the reading of the King James version of the Bible . . . and under those conditions we would have theoretically liked to have had the children excused. But we felt that the penalty of having our children labelled as `odd balls' before their teachers and classmates every day in the year was even less satisfactory than the other problem. . . .

"The children, the classmates of Roger and Donna are very liable to label and lump all particular religious difference or religious objections as atheism, particularly, today the word `atheism' is so often tied to atheistic communism, and atheism has very bad connotations in the minds of children and many adults today."

A recent opinion of the Attorney General of California gave as one reason for finding devotional exercises unconstitutional the likelihood that "[c]hildren forced by conscience to leave the room during such exercises would be placed in a position inferior to that of students adhering to the State-endorsed religion." 25 Cal. Op. Atty. Gen. 316, 319 (1955). Other views on this question, and possible effects of the excusal procedure, are summarized in Rosenfield, Separation of Church and State in the Public Schools, 22 U. of Pitt. L. Rev. 561, 581-585 (1961); Note, Separation of Church and State: Religious Exercises in the Schools, 31 U. of Cinc. L. Rev. 408, 416 (1962); Note, 62 W. Va. L. Rev. 353, 358 (1960).

[87] Extensive testimony by behavioral scientists concerning the effect of similar practices upon children's attitudes and behaviors is discussed in Tudor v. Board of Education, 14 N. J. 31, 50-52, 100 A. 2d 857, 867-868. See also Choper, Religion in the Public Schools: A Proposed Constitutional Standard, 47 Minn. L. Rev. 329, 344 (1963). There appear to be no reported experiments which bear directly upon the question under consideration. There have, however, been numerous experiments which indicate the susceptibility of school children to peer-group pressures, especially where important group norms and values are involved. See, e.g., Berenda, The Influence of the Group on the Judgments of Children (1950), 26-33; Argyle, Social Pressure in Public and Private Situations, 54 J. Abnormal & Social Psych. 172 (1957); cf. Rhine, The Effect of Peer Group Influence Upon Concept-Attitude Development and Change, 51 J. Social Psych. 173 (1960); French, Morrison and Levinger, Coercive Power and Forces Affecting Conformity, 61 J. Abnormal and Social Psych. 93 (1960). For a recent and important experimental study of the susceptibility of students to various factors in the school environment, see Zander, Curtis and Rosenfeld, The Influence of Teachers and Peers on Aspirations of Youth (U. S. Office of Education Cooperative Research Project No. 451, 1961), 24-25, 78-79. It is also apparent that the susceptibility of school children to prestige suggestion and social influence within the school environment varies inversely with the age, grade level, and consequent degree of sophistication of the child, see Patel and Gordon, Some Personal and Situational Determinants of Yielding to Influence, 61 J. Abnormal and Social Psych. 411, 417 (1960).

Experimental findings also shed some light upon the probable effectiveness of a provision for excusal when, as is usually the case, the percentage of the class wishing not to participate in the exercises is very small. It has been demonstrated, for example, that the inclination even of adults to depart or dissent overtly from strong group norms varies proportionately with the size of the dissenting group— that is, inversely with the apparent or perceived strength of the norm itself—and is markedly slighter in the case of the sole or isolated dissenter. See, e.g., Asch, Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority (Psych. Monographs No. 416, 1956), 69-70; Asch, Effects of Group Pressure upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgments, in Cartwright and Zander, Group Dynamics (2d ed. 1960), 189-199; Luchins and Luchins, On Conformity With True and False Communications, 42 J. Social Psych. 283 (1955). Recent important findings on these questions are summarized in Hare, Handbook of Small Group Research (1962), c. II.

[88] See, on the general problem of conflict and accommodation between the two clauses, Katz, Freedom of Religion and State Neutrality, 20 U. of Chi. L. Rev. 426, 429 (1953); Griswold, Absolute Is In the Dark, 8 Utah L. Rev. 167, 176-179 (1963); Kauper, Church, State, and Freedom: A Review, 52 Mich. L. Rev. 829, 833 (1954). One author has suggested that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses must be "read as stating a single precept: that government cannot utilize religion as a standard for action or inaction because these clauses, read together as they should be, prohibit classification in terms of religion either to confer a benefit or to impose a burden." Kurland, Religion and the Law (1962), 112. Compare the formula of accommodation embodied in the Australian Constitution, § 116:

"The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth." Essays on the Australian Constitution (Else-Mitchell ed. 1961), 15.

[89] There has been much difference of opinion throughout American history concerning the advisability of furnishing chaplains at government expense. Compare, e.g.,Washington's order regarding chaplains for the Continental Army, July 9, 1776, in 5 Writings of George Washington (Fitzpatrick ed. 1932), 244, with Madison's views on a very similar question, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822, 9 Writings of James Madison (Hunt ed. 1910), 100-103. Compare also this statement by the Armed Forces Chaplains Board concerning the chaplain's obligation:

"To us has been entrusted the spiritual and moral guidance of the young men and women in the Armed Services of this country. A chaplain has many duties—yet, first and foremost is that of presenting God to men and women wearing the military uniform. What happens to them while they are in military service has a profound effect on what happens in the community as they resume civilian life. We, as chaplains, must take full cognizance of that fact and dedicate our work to making them finer, spiritually strengthened citizens." Builders of Faith (U. S. Department of Defense 1955), ii. It is interesting to compare in this regard an express provision, Article 140, of the Weimar Constitution: "Necessary free time shall be accorded to the members of the armed forces for the fulfilment of their religious duties." McBain and Rogers, The New Constitutions of Europe (1922), 203.

[90] For a discussion of some recent and difficult problems in connection with chaplains and religious exercises in prisons, see, e.g., Pierce v. La Vallee, 293 F. 2d 233; In re Ferguson, 55 Cal. 2d 663, 361 P. 2d 417; McBride v. McCorkle, 44 N. J. Super. 468, 130 A. 2d 881; Brown v. McGinnis,10 N. Y. 2d 531, 180 N. E. 2d 791; discussed in Comment, 62 Col. L. Rev. 1488 (1962); 75 Harv. L. Rev. 837 (1962). Compare Article XVIII of the Hague Convention Regulations of 1899:

"Prisoners of war shall enjoy every latitude in the exercise of their religion, including attendance at their own church services, provided only they comply with the regulations for order and police issued by the military authorities." Quoted in Blakely, American State Papers and Related Documents on Freedom in Religion (4th rev. ed. 1949), 313.

[91] Compare generally Sibley and Jacob, Conscription of Conscience: The American State and the Conscientious Objector, 1940-1947 (1952), with Conklin, Conscientious Objector Provisions: A View in the Light of Torcaso v. Watkins, 51 Geo. L. J. 252 (1963).

[92] See, e.g., Southside Estates Baptist Church v. Board of Trustees, 115 So. 2d 697 (Fla.); Lewis v. Mandeville, 201 Misc. 120, 107 N. Y. S. 2d 865; cf. School District No. 97 v. Schmidt, 128 Colo. 495, 263 P. 2d 581 (temporary loan of school district's custodian to church). A different problem may be presented with respect to the regular use of public school property for religious activities, State ex rel. Gilbert v. Dilley, 95 Neb. 527, 145 N. W. 999; the erection on public property of a statue of or memorial to an essentially religious figure, State ex rel. Singelmann v. Morrison, 57 So. 2d 238 (La. App.); seasonal displays of a religious character, Baer v. Kolmorgen, 14 Misc. 2d 1015, 181 N. Y. S. 2d 230; or the performance on public property of a drama or opera based on religious material or carrying a religious message, cf. County of Los Angeles v. Hollinger, 200 Cal. App. 2d 877, 19 Cal. Rptr. 648.

[93] Compare Moulton and Myers, Report on Appointing Chaplains to the Legislature of New York, in Blau, Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America (1949), 141-156; Comment, 63 Col. L. Rev. 73, 97 (1963).

[94] A comprehensive survey of the problems raised concerning the role of religion in the secular curriculum is contained in Brown, ed., The Study of Religion in the Public Schools: An Appraisal (1958). See also Katz, Religion and American Constitutions, Lecture at Northwestern University Law School, March 21, 1963, pp. 37-41; Educational Policies Comm'n of the National Education Assn., Moral and Spiritual Values in the Public Schools (1951), 49-80. Compare, for a consideration of similar problems in state-supported colleges and universities, Louisell and Jackson, Religion, Theology, and Public Higher Education, 50 Cal. L. Rev. 751 (1962).

[95] See generally Torpey, Judicial Doctrines of Religious Rights in America (1948), c. VI; Van Alstyne, Tax Exemption of Church Property, 20 Ohio State L. J. 461 (1959); Sutherland, Due Process and Disestablishment, 62 Harv. L. Rev. 1306, 1336-1338 (1949); Louisell and Jackson, Religion, Theology, and Public Higher Education, 50 Cal. L. Rev. 751, 773-780 (1962); 7 De Paul L. Rev. 206 (1958); 58 Col. L. Rev. 417 (1958); 9 Stan. L. Rev. 366 (1957).

[96] See, e.g., Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U. S. App. D. C. 371, 249 F. 2d 127; Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal. App. 2d 673, 315 P. 2d 394.

[97] It is instructive, in this connection, to examine the complaints in the two cases before us. Neither complaint attacks the challenged practices as "establishments." What both allege as the basis for their causes of actions are, rather, violations of religious liberty.

[98] 310 U. S., at 303. The Court's statement as to the Establishment Clause in Cantwell was dictum. The case was decided on free exercise grounds.

[99] See also, in this connection, Zorach v. Clauson,343 U. S. 306, 314:

"Government may not finance religious groups nor undertake religious instruction nor blend secular and sectarian education nor use secular institutions to force one or some religion on any person. But we find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence."

[100] "This is beyond all question a utilization of the tax-established and tax-supported public school system to aid religious groups to spread their faith." McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 210. (Emphasis added.)

[101] The Pennsylvania statute was specifically amended to remove the compulsion upon teachers. Act of December 17, 1959, P. L. 1928, 24 Purdon's Pa. Stat. Ann. § 15-1516. Since the Maryland case is here on a demurrer, the issue of whether or not a teacher could be dismissed for refusal to participate seems, among many others, never to have been raised.

[102] See, e.g., the description of a plan permitting religious instruction off school property contained in McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 224 (separate opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter).

[103] Cf. "The task of separating the secular from the religious in education is one of magnitude, intricacy and delicacy. To lay down a sweeping constitutional doctrine as demanded by complainant and apparently approved by the Court, applicable alike to all school boards of the nation, . . . is to decree a uniform, rigid and, if we are consistent, an unchanging standard for countless school boards representing and serving highly localized groups which not only differ from each other but which themselves from time to time change attitudes. It seems to me that to do so is to allow zeal for our own ideas of what is good in public instruction to induce us to accept the role of a super board of education for every school district in the nation." McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 237 (concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Jackson).

[104] For example, if the record in the Schempp case contained proof (rather than mere prophecy) that the timing of morning announcements by the school was such as to handicap children who did not want to listen to the Bible reading, or that the excusal provision was so administered as to carry any overtones of social inferiority, then impermissible coercion would clearly exist.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

[784] Shanler D. Cronk, Assistant Attorney General of Nebraska, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Paul L. Douglas, Attorney General.

Herbert J. Friedman argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Stephen L. Pevar, Burt Neuborne, and Charles S. Sims.^[1]

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by Nathan Z. Dershowitz and Marc D. Stern for the American Jewish Congress; by David J. Eiseman, Justin J. Finger, and Jeffrey P. Sinensky for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith; and by Thomas P. Gies for Jon Garth Murray et al.

Lanny M. Proffer filed a brief for the National Conference of State Legislatures as amicus curiae.

CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented is whether the Nebraska Legislature's practice of opening each legislative day with a prayer by a chaplain paid by the State violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

I

The Nebraska Legislature begins each of its sessions with a prayer offered by a chaplain who is chosen biennially by the Executive Board of the Legislative Council and paid out of [785] public funds.^[2] Robert E. Palmer, a Presbyterian minister, has served as chaplain since 1965 at a salary of $319.75 per month for each month the legislature is in session.

Ernest Chambers is a member of the Nebraska Legislature and a taxpayer of Nebraska. Claiming that the Nebraska Legislature's chaplaincy practice violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, he brought this action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, seeking to enjoin enforcement of the practice.^[3] After denying a motion to dismiss on the ground of legislative immunity, the District Court held that the Establishment Clause was not breached by the prayers, but was violated by paying the chaplain from public funds. 504 F. Supp. 585 (Neb. 1980). It therefore enjoined the legislature from using public funds to pay the chaplain; it declined to enjoin the policy of beginning sessions with prayers. Cross-appeals were taken.^[4]

The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected arguments that the case should be dismissed on Tenth Amendment, legislative immunity, standing, or federalism grounds. On the merits of the chaplaincy issue, the court refused to treat respondent's challenges as separable issues as the District Court had done. Instead, the Court of Appeals assessed the practice as a whole because "[p]arsing out [the] [786] elements" would lead to "an incongruous result." 675 F. 2d 228, 233 (1982).

Applying the three-part test of Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971), as set out in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 773 (1973), the court held that the chaplaincy practice violated all three elements of the test: the purpose and primary effect of selecting the same minister for 16 years and publishing his prayers was to promote a particular religious expression; use of state money for compensation and publication led to entanglement. 675 F. 2d, at 234-235. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals modified the District Court's injunction and prohibited the State from engaging in any aspect of its established chaplaincy practice.

We granted certiorari limited to the challenge to the practice of opening sessions with prayers by a state-employed clergyman, 459 U. S. 966 (1982), and we reverse.^[5]

II

The opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country. From colonial times through the founding of the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom. In the very courtrooms in which the United States District Judge and later three Circuit Judges heard and decided this case, the proceedings opened with an announcement that concluded, "God save the United States and this Honorable Court." The same invocation occurs at all sessions of this Court.

[787] The tradition in many of the Colonies was, of course, linked to an established church,^[6] but the Continental Congress, beginning in 1774, adopted the traditional procedure of opening its sessions with a prayer offered by a paid chaplain. See, e.g., 1 J. Continental Cong. 26 (1774); 2 id., at 12 (1775); 5 id., at 530 (1776); 6 id., at 887 (1776); 27 id., at 683 (1784). See also 1 A. Stokes, Church and State in the United States 448-450 (1950). Although prayers were not offered during the Constitutional Convention,^[7] the First Congress, as one of [788] its early items of business, adopted the policy of selecting a chaplain to open each session with prayer. Thus, on April 7, 1789, the Senate appointed a committee "to take under consideration the manner of electing Chaplains." S. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1820 ed.). On April 9, 1789, a similar committee was appointed by the House of Representatives. On April 25, 1789, the Senate elected its first chaplain, id., at 16; the House followed suit on May 1, 1789, H. R. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1826 ed.). A statute providing for the payment of these chaplains was enacted into law on September 22, 1789.^[8] 2 Annals of Cong. 2180; § 4, 1 Stat. 71.^[9]

On September 25, 1789, three days after Congress authorized the appointment of paid chaplains, final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of Rights, S. Jour., supra, at 88; H. R. Jour., supra, at 121.^[10] Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment, for the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress.^[11] It has also been followed consistently [789] in most of the states,^[12] including Nebraska, where the institution of opening legislative sessions with prayer was adopted even before the State attained statehood. Neb. [790] Jour. of Council, General Assembly, 1st Sess., 16 (Jan. 22, 1855).

Standing alone, historical patterns cannot justify contemporary violations of constitutional guarantees, but there is far more here than simply historical patterns. In this context, historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress — their actions reveal their intent. An Act

"passed by the first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument, . . . is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning." Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265, 297 (1888).

In Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664, 678 (1970), we considered the weight to be accorded to history:

"It is obviously correct that no one acquires a vested or protected right in violation of the Constitution by long use, even when that span of time covers our entire national existence and indeed predates it. Yet an unbroken practice . . . is not something to be lightly cast aside."

No more is Nebraska's practice of over a century, consistent with two centuries of national practice, to be cast aside. It can hardly be thought that in the same week Members of the First Congress voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment for submission to the states, they intended the Establishment Clause of the Amendment to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. In applying the First Amendment to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), it would be incongruous to interpret that Clause as imposing more stringent [791] First Amendment limits on the states than the draftsmen imposed on the Federal Government.

This unique history leads us to accept the interpretation of the First Amendment draftsmen who saw no real threat to the Establishment Clause arising from a practice of prayer similar to that now challenged. We conclude that legislative prayer presents no more potential for establishment than the provision of school transportation, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1 (1947), beneficial grants for higher education, Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U. S. 672 (1971), or tax exemptions for religious organizations, Walz, supra.

Respondent cites JUSTICE BRENNAN's concurring opinion in Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 237 (1963), and argues that we should not rely too heavily on "the advice of the Founding Fathers" because the messages of history often tend to be ambiguous and not relevant to a society far more heterogeneous than that of the Framers, id., at 240. Respondent also points out that John Jay and John Rutledge opposed the motion to begin the first session of the Continental Congress with prayer. Brief for Respondent 60.^[13]

We do not agree that evidence of opposition to a measure weakens the force of the historical argument; indeed it infuses it with power by demonstrating that the subject was considered carefully and the action not taken thoughtlessly, by force of long tradition and without regard to the problems posed by a pluralistic society. Jay and Rutledge specifically grounded their objection on the fact that the delegates to the Congress "were so divided in religious sentiments . . . that [they] could not join in the same act of worship." Their objection [792] was met by Samuel Adams, who stated that "he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer form a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country." C. Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife, Abigail Adams, during the Revolution 37-38, reprinted in Stokes, at 449.

This interchange emphasizes that the delegates did not consider opening prayers as a proselytizing activity or as symbolically placing the government's "official seal of approval on one religious view," cf. 675 F. 2d, at 234. Rather, the Founding Fathers looked at invocations as "conduct whose . . . effect . . . harmonize[d] with the tenets of some or all religions." McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442 (1961). The Establishment Clause does not always bar a state from regulating conduct simply because it "harmonizes with religious canons." Id., at 462 (Frankfurter, J., concurring). Here, the individual claiming injury by the practice is an adult, presumably not readily susceptible to "religious indoctrination," see Tilton, supra, at 686; Colo v. Treasurer & Receiver General, 378 Mass. 550, 559, 392 N. E. 2d 1195, 1200 (1979), or peer pressure, compare Abington, supra, at 290 (BRENNAN, J., concurring).

In light of the unambiguous and unbroken history of more than 200 years, there can be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society. To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an "establishment" of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country. As Justice Douglas observed, "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313 (1952).

III

We turn then to the question of whether any features of the Nebraska practice violate the Establishment Clause. [793] Beyond the bare fact that a prayer is offered, three points have been made: first, that a clergyman of only one denomination — Presbyterian — has been selected for 16 years;^[14] second, that the chaplain is paid at public expense; and third, that the prayers are in the Judeo-Christian tradition.^[15] Weighed against the historical background, these factors do not serve to invalidate Nebraska's practice.^[16]

The Court of Appeals was concerned that Palmer's long tenure has the effect of giving preference to his religious views. We cannot, any more than Members of the Congresses of this century, perceive any suggestion that choosing a clergyman of one denomination advances the beliefs of a particular church. To the contrary, the evidence indicates that Palmer was reappointed because his performance and personal qualities were acceptable to the body appointing him.^[17] Palmer was not the only clergyman heard by the legislature; guest chaplains have officiated at the request of various legislators and as substitutes during Palmer's absences. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. Absent proof that the chaplain's reappointment stemmed from an impermissible motive, we conclude [794] that his long tenure does not in itself conflict with the Establishment Clause.^[18]

Nor is the compensation of the chaplain from public funds a reason to invalidate the Nebraska Legislature's chaplaincy; remuneration is grounded in historic practice initiated, as we noted earlier, supra, at 788, by the same Congress that drafted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Continental Congress paid its chaplain, see, e.g., 6 J. Continental Cong. 887 (1776), as did some of the states, see, e.g., Debates of the Convention of Virginia 470 (June 26, 1788). Currently, many state legislatures and the United States Congress provide compensation for their chaplains, Brief for National Conference of State Legislatures as Amicus Curiae 3; 2 U. S. C. §§ 61d and 84-2 (1982 ed.); H. R. Res. 7, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979).^[19] Nebraska has paid its chaplain for well over a century, see 1867 Neb. Laws 85, §§ 2-4 (June 21, 1867), reprinted in Neb. Gen. Stat. 459 (1873). The content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where, as here, there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, [795] or to disparage any other, faith or belief. That being so, it is not for us to embark on a sensitive evaluation or to parse the content of a particular prayer.

We do not doubt the sincerity of those, who like respondent, believe that to have prayer in this context risks the beginning of the establishment the Founding Fathers feared. But this concern is not well founded, for as Justice Goldberg aptly observed in his concurring opinion in Abington, 374 U. S., at 308:

"It is of course true that great consequences can grow from small beginnings, but the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow."

The unbroken practice for two centuries in the National Congress and for more than a century in Nebraska and in many other states gives abundant assurance that there is no real threat "while this Court sits," Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223 (1928) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Reversed.

JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.

The Court today has written a narrow and, on the whole, careful opinion. In effect, the Court holds that officially sponsored legislative prayer, primarily on account of its "unique history," ante, at 791, is generally exempted from the First Amendment's prohibition against "an establishment of religion." The Court's opinion is consistent with dictum in at least one of our prior decisions,^[20] and its limited rationale should pose little threat to the overall fate of the Establishment Clause. Moreover, disagreement with the Court [796] requires that I confront the fact that some 20 years ago, in a concurring opinion in one of the cases striking down official prayer and ceremonial Bible reading in the public schools, I came very close to endorsing essentially the result reached by the Court today.^[21] Nevertheless, after much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I was wrong then and that the Court is wrong today. I now believe that the practice of official invocational prayer, as it exists in Nebraska and most other state legislatures, is unconstitutional. It is contrary to the doctrine as well the underlying purposes of the Establishment Clause, and it is not saved either by its history or by any of the other considerations suggested in the Court's opinion.

I respectfully dissent.

I

The Court makes no pretense of subjecting Nebraska's practice of legislative prayer to any of the formal "tests" that have traditionally structured our inquiry under the Establishment Clause. That it fails to do so is, in a sense, a good thing, for it simply confirms that the Court is carving out an exception to the Establishment Clause rather than reshaping Establishment Clause doctrine to accommodate legislative prayer. For my purposes, however, I must begin by demonstrating what should be obvious: that, if the Court were to judge legislative prayer through the unsentimental eye of our settled doctrine, it would have to strike it down as a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.

The most commonly cited formulation of prevailing Establishment Clause doctrine is found in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971):

[797] "Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. Three such tests may be gleaned from our cases. First, the statute [at issue] must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster `an excessive government entanglement with religion.' " Id., at 612-613 (citations omitted).^[22]

That the "purpose" of legislative prayer is pre-eminently religious rather than secular seems to me to be self-evident.^[23] "To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws," ante, at 792, is nothing but a religious act. Moreover, whatever secular functions legislative prayer might play — formally opening the legislative session, getting the members of the body to quiet down, and imbuing them with a sense of seriousness and high purpose — could so plainly be performed in a purely nonreligious fashion that to claim a secular purpose for the prayer is an insult to the perfectly [798] honorable individuals who instituted and continue the practice.

The "primary effect" of legislative prayer is also clearly religious. As we said in the context of officially sponsored prayers in the public schools, "prescribing a particular form of religious worship," even if the individuals involved have the choice not to participate, places "indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion . . . ." Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 431 (1962).^[24] More importantly, invocations in Nebraska's legislative halls explicitly link religious belief and observance to the power and prestige of the State. "[T]he mere appearance of a joint exercise of legislative authority by Church and State provides a significant symbolic benefit to religion in the minds of some by reason of the power conferred." Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., 459 U. S. 116, 125-126 (1982).^[25] See Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 224 (1963).

Finally, there can be no doubt that the practice of legislative prayer leads to excessive "entanglement" between the State and religion. Lemon pointed out that "entanglement" can take two forms: First, a state statute or program might involve the state impermissibly in monitoring and overseeing [799] religious affairs. 403 U. S., at 614-622.^[26] In the case of legislative prayer, the process of choosing a "suitable" chaplain, whether on a permanent or rotating basis, and insuring that the chaplain limits himself or herself to "suitable" prayers, involves precisely the sort of supervision that agencies of government should if at all possible avoid.^[27]

Second, excessive "entanglement" might arise out of "the divisive political potential" of a state statute or program. 403 U. S., at 622.

"Ordinarily political debate and division, however vigorous or even partisan, are normal and healthy manifestations of our democratic system of government, but political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. The potential divisiveness of such conflict is a threat to the normal political process." Ibid. (citations omitted).

In this case, this second aspect of entanglement is also clear. The controversy between Senator Chambers and his colleagues, which had reached the stage of difficulty and rancor long before this lawsuit was brought, has split the Nebraska [800] Legislature precisely on issues of religion and religious conformity. App. 21-24. The record in this case also reports a series of instances, involving legislators other than Senator Chambers, in which invocations by Reverend Palmer and others led to controversy along religious lines.^[28] And in general, the history of legislative prayer has been far more eventful — and divisive — than a hasty reading of the Court's opinion might indicate.^[29]

In sum, I have no doubt that, if any group of law students were asked to apply the principles of Lemon to the question [801] of legislative prayer, they would nearly unanimously find the practice to be unconstitutional.^[30]

II

The path of formal doctrine, however, can only imperfectly capture the nature and importance of the issues at stake in this case. A more adequate analysis must therefore take [802] into account the underlying function of the Establishment Clause, and the forces that have shaped its doctrine.

A

Most of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, even if they are not generally enforceable in the absence of state action, nevertheless arise out of moral intuitions applicable to individuals as well as governments. The Establishment Clause, however, is quite different. It is, to its core, nothing less and nothing more than a statement about the proper role of government in the society that we have shaped for ourselves in this land.

The Establishment Clause embodies a judgment, born of a long and turbulent history, that, in our society, religion "must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice . . . ." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 625.

"Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and non-religion." Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 103-104 (1968) (footnote omitted).

"In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect `a wall of separation between church and State.' " Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1, 16 (1947), quoting Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1879).^[31]

[803] The principles of "separation" and "neutrality" implicit in the Establishment Clause serve many purposes. Four of these are particularly relevant here.

The first, which is most closely related to the more general conceptions of liberty found in the remainder of the First Amendment, is to guarantee the individual right to conscience.^[32] The right to conscience, in the religious sphere, is not only implicated when the government engages in direct or indirect coercion. It is also implicated when the government requires individuals to support the practices of a faith with which they do not agree.

" `[T]o compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of [religious] opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; . . . even . . . forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern . . . .' " Everson v. Board of Education, supra, at 13, quoting Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty, 12 Hening, Statutes of Virginia 84 (1823).

The second purpose of separation and neutrality is to keep the state from interfering in the essential autonomy of religious life, either by taking upon itself the decision of religious [804] issues,^[33] or by unduly involving itself in the supervision of religious institutions or officials.^[34]

The third purpose of separation and neutrality is to prevent the trivialization and degradation of religion by too close an attachment to the organs of government. The Establishment Clause "stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its `unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate." Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S., at 432, quoting Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 2 Writings of Madison 187. See also Schempp, 374 U. S., at 221-222; id., at 283-287 (BRENNAN, J., concurring).^[35]

[805] Finally, the principles of separation and neutrality help assure that essentially religious issues, precisely because of their importance and sensitivity, not become the occasion for battle in the political arena. See Lemon, 403 U. S., at 622-624; Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236, 249 (Harlan, J., concurring); Engel, supra, at 429-430. With regard to most issues, the government may be influenced by partisan argument and may act as a partisan itself. In each case, there will be winners and losers in the political battle, and the losers' most common recourse is the right to dissent and the right to fight the battle again another day. With regard to matters that are essentially religious, however, the Establishment Clause seeks that there should be no political battles, and that no American should at any point feel alienated [806] from his government because that government has declared or acted upon some "official" or "authorized" point of view on a matter of religion.^[36]

B

The imperatives of separation and neutrality are not limited to the relationship of government to religious institutions or denominations, but extend as well to the relationship of government to religious beliefs and practices. In Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961), for example, we struck down a state provision requiring a religious oath as a qualification to hold office, not only because it violated principles of free exercise of religion, but also because it violated the principles of nonestablishment of religion. And, of course, in the pair of cases that hang over this one like a reproachful set of parents, we held that official prayer and prescribed Bible reading in the public schools represent a serious encroachment on the Establishment Clause. Schempp, supra; Engel, supra. As we said in Engel, "[i]t is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance." 370 U. S., at 435 (footnote omitted).

Nor should it be thought that this view of the Establishment Clause is a recent concoction of an overreaching judiciary. [807] Even before the First Amendment was written, the Framers of the Constitution broke with the practice of the Articles of Confederation and many state constitutions, and did not invoke the name of God in the document. This "omission of a reference to the Deity was not inadvertent; nor did it remain unnoticed."^[37] Moreover, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, during their respective terms as President, both refused on Establishment Clause grounds to declare national days of thanksgiving or fasting.^[38] And James Madison, writing subsequent to his own Presidency on essentially the very issue we face today, stated:

"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

"In strictness, the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of [808] them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation." Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memoranda," 3 Wm. & Mary Quarterly 534, 558 (1946).

C

Legislative prayer clearly violates the principles of neutrality and separation that are embedded within the Establishment Clause. It is contrary to the fundamental message of Engel and Schempp. It intrudes on the right to conscience by forcing some legislators either to participate in a "prayer opportunity," ante, at 794, with which they are in basic disagreement, or to make their disagreement a matter of public comment by declining to participate. It forces all residents of the State to support a religious exercise that may be contrary to their own beliefs. It requires the State to commit itself on fundamental theological issues.^[39] It has the potential for degrading religion by allowing a religious call to worship to be intermeshed with a secular call to order. And it injects religion into the political sphere by creating the potential that each and every selection of a chaplain, or consideration of a particular prayer, or even reconsideration of the practice itself, will provoke a political battle along religious lines and ultimately alienate some religiously identified group of citizens.^[40]

[809] D

One response to the foregoing account, of course, is that "neutrality" and "separation" do not exhaust the full meaning of the Establishment Clause as it has developed in our cases. It is indeed true that there are certain tensions inherent in the First Amendment itself, or inherent in the role of religion and religious belief in any free society, that have shaped the doctrine of the Establishment Clause, and required us to deviate from an absolute adherence to separation and neutrality. Nevertheless, these considerations, although very important, are also quite specific, and where none of them is present, the Establishment Clause gives us no warrant simply to look the other way and treat an unconstitutional practice as if it were constitutional. Because the Court occasionally suggests that some of these considerations might apply here, it becomes important that I briefly identify the most prominent of them and explain why they do not in fact have any relevance to legislative prayer.

(1)

A number of our cases have recognized that religious institutions and religious practices may, in certain contexts, receive the benefit of government programs and policies generally available, on the basis of some secular criterion, to a wide class of similarly situated nonreligious beneficiaries,^[41] and the precise cataloging of those contexts is not necessarily an easy task. I need not tarry long here, however, because the provision for a daily official invocation by a nonmember officer of [810] a legislative body could by no stretch of the imagination appear anywhere in that catalog.

(2)

Conversely, our cases have recognized that religion can encompass a broad, if not total, spectrum of concerns, overlapping considerably with the range of secular concerns, and that not every governmental act which coincides with or conflicts with a particular religious belief is for that reason an establishment of religion. See, e.g., McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 431-445 (1961) (Sunday Laws); Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 319-320 (1980) (abortion restrictions). The Court seems to suggest at one point that the practice of legislative prayer may be excused on this ground, ante, at 792, but I cannot really believe that it takes this position seriously.^[42] The practice of legislative prayer is nothing like the statutes we considered in McGowan and Harris v. McRae; prayer is not merely "conduct whose . . . effect . . . harmonize[s] with the tenets of some or all religions," McGowan, supra, at 442; prayer is fundamentally and necessarily religious. "It is prayer which distinguishes religious phenomena from all those which resemble them or lie near to them, from the moral sense, for instance, or aesthetic feeling."^[43] Accord, Engel, 370 U. S., at 424.

(3)

We have also recognized that government cannot, without adopting a decidedly anti-religious point of view, be forbidden [811] to recognize the religious beliefs and practices of the American people as an aspect of our history and culture.^[44] Certainly, bona fide classes in comparative religion can be offered in the public schools.^[45] And certainly, the text of Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address which is inscribed on a wall of the Lincoln Memorial need not be purged of its profound theological content. The practice of offering invocations at legislative sessions cannot, however, simply be dismissed as "a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country." Ante, at 792 (emphasis added). "Prayer is religion in act."^[46] "Praying means to take hold of a word, the end, so to speak, of a line that leads to God."^[47] Reverend Palmer and other members of the clergy who offer invocations at legislative sessions are not museum pieces put on display once a day for the edification of the legislature. Rather, they are engaged by the legislature to lead it — as a body — in an act of religious worship. If upholding the practice requires denial of this fact, I suspect that many supporters of legislative prayer would feel that they had been handed a pyrrhic victory.

(4)

Our cases have recognized that the purposes of the Establishment Clause can sometimes conflict. For example, in Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970), we upheld tax exemptions for religious institutions in part because subjecting those institutions to taxation might foster serious administrative entanglement. Id., at 674-676. Here, however, no [812] such tension exists; the State can vindicate all the purposes of the Establishment Clause by abolishing legislative prayer.

(5)

Finally, our cases recognize that, in one important respect, the Constitution is not neutral on the subject of religion: Under the Free Exercise Clause, religiously motivated claims of conscience may give rise to constitutional rights that other strongly held beliefs do not. See n. 13, supra. Moreover, even when the government is not compelled to do so by the Free Exercise Clause, it may to some extent act to facilitate the opportunities of individuals to practice their religion.^[48] See Schempp, 374 U. S., at 299 (BRENNAN, J., concurring) ("hostility, not neutrality, would characterize the refusal to provide chaplains and places of worship for prisoners and soldiers cut off by the State from all civilian opportunities for public communion"). This is not, however, a case in which a State is accommodating individual religious interests. We are not faced here with the right of the legislature to allow its members to offer prayers during the course of [813] general legislative debate. We are certainly not faced with the right of legislators to form voluntary groups for prayer or worship. We are not even faced with the right of the State to employ members of the clergy to minister to the private religious needs of individual legislators. Rather, we are faced here with the regularized practice of conducting official prayers, on behalf of the entire legislature, as part of the order of business constituting the formal opening of every single session of the legislative term. If this is free exercise, the Establishment Clause has no meaning whatsoever.

III

With the exception of the few lapses I have already noted, each of which is commendably qualified so as to be limited to the facts of this case, the Court says almost nothing contrary to the above analysis. Instead, it holds that "the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part of the fabric of our society," ante, at 792, and chooses not to interfere. I sympathize with the Court's reluctance to strike down a practice so prevalent and so ingrained as legislative prayer. I am, however, unconvinced by the Court's arguments, and cannot shake my conviction that legislative prayer violates both the letter and the spirit of the Establishment Clause.

A

The Court's main argument for carving out an exception sustaining legislative prayer is historical. The Court cannot — and does not — purport to find a pattern of "undeviating acceptance," Walz, supra, at 681 (BRENNAN, J., concurring), of legislative prayer. See ante, at 791, and n. 12; n. 10, supra. It also disclaims exclusive reliance on the mere longevity of legislative prayer. Ante, at 790. The Court does, however, point out that, only three days before the First Congress reached agreement on the final wording of the Bill of Rights, it authorized the appointment of paid chaplains for [814] its own proceedings, ante, at 788, and the Court argues that in light of this "unique history," ante, at 791, the actions of Congress reveal its intent as to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, ante, at 788-790. I agree that historical practice is "of considerable import in the interpretation of abstract constitutional language," Walz, 397 U. S., at 681 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). This is a case, however, in which — absent the Court's invocation of history — there would be no question that the practice at issue was unconstitutional. And despite the surface appeal of the Court's argument, there are at least three reasons why specific historical practice should not in this case override that clear constitutional imperative.^[49]

First, it is significant that the Court's historical argument does not rely on the legislative history of the Establishment Clause itself. Indeed, that formal history is profoundly unilluminating on this and most other subjects. Rather, the Court assumes that the Framers of the Establishment Clause would not have themselves authorized a practice that they thought violated the guarantees contained in the Clause. Ante, at 790. This assumption, however, is questionable. Legislators, influenced by the passions and exigencies of the moment, the pressure of constituents and colleagues, and the press of business, do not always pass sober constitutional judgment on every piece of legislation they enact,^[50] and this [815] must be assumed to be as true of the Members of the First Congress as any other. Indeed, the fact that James Madison, who voted for the bill authorizing the payment of the first congressional chaplains, ante, at 788, n. 8, later expressed the view that the practice was unconstitutional, see supra, at 807-808, is instructive on precisely this point. Madison's later views may not have represented so much a change of mind as a change of role, from a Member of Congress engaged in the hurly-burly of legislative activity to a detached observer engaged in unpressured reflection. Since the latter role is precisely the one with which this Court is charged, I am not at all sure that Madison's later writings should be any less influential in our deliberations than his earlier vote.

Second, the Court's analysis treats the First Amendment simply as an Act of Congress, as to whose meaning the intent of Congress is the single touchstone. Both the Constitution and its Amendments, however, became supreme law only by virtue of their ratification by the States, and the understanding of the States should be as relevant to our analysis as the understanding of Congress.^[51] See Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U. S. 24, 43 (1974); Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 602 (1900).^[52] This observation is especially compelling in considering [816] the meaning of the Bill of Rights. The first 10 Amendments were not enacted because the Members of the First Congress came up with a bright idea one morning; rather, their enactment was forced upon Congress by a number of the States as a condition for their ratification of the original Constitution.^[53] To treat any practice authorized by the First Congress as presumptively consistent with the Bill of Rights is therefore somewhat akin to treating any action of a party to a contract as presumptively consistent with the terms of the contract. The latter proposition, if it were accepted, would of course resolve many of the heretofore perplexing issues in contract law.

Finally, and most importantly, the argument tendered by the Court is misguided because the Constitution is not a static document whose meaning on every detail is fixed for all time by the life experience of the Framers. We have recognized in a wide variety of constitutional contexts that the practices that were in place at the time any particular guarantee was enacted into the Constitution do not necessarily fix forever the meaning of that guarantee.^[54] To be truly faithful to the Framers, "our use of the history of their time must limit itself to broad purposes, not specific practices." Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 241 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). Our primary task must be to translate "the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the [817] problems of the twentieth century . . . ." West Virginia Bd. of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 639 (1943).

The inherent adaptability of the Constitution and its amendments is particularly important with respect to the Establishment Clause. "[O]ur religious composition makes us a vastly more diverse people than were our forefathers.. . . In the face of such profound changes, practices which may have been objectionable to no one in the time of Jefferson and Madison may today be highly offensive to many persons, the deeply devout and the nonbelievers alike." Schempp, supra, at 240-241 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). Cf. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618, 628 (1978) (plurality opinion). President John Adams issued during his Presidency a number of official proclamations calling on all Americans to engage in Christian prayer.^[55] Justice Story, in his treatise on the Constitution, contended that the "real object" of the First Amendment "was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects . . . ."^[56] Whatever deference Adams' actions and Story's views might once have deserved in this Court, the Establishment Clause must now be read in a very different light. Similarly, the Members of the First Congress should be treated, not as sacred figures whose every action must be emulated, but as the authors of a document meant to last for the ages. Indeed, a proper respect for the Framers themselves forbids us to give so static and lifeless a meaning to their work. To my mind, the Court's focus here on a narrow piece of history is, in a fundamental sense, a betrayal of the lessons of history.

[818] B

Of course, the Court does not rely entirely on the practice of the First Congress in order to validate legislative prayer. There is another theme which, although implicit, also pervades the Court's opinion. It is exemplified by the Court's comparison of legislative prayer with the formulaic recitation of "God save the United States and this Honorable Court." Ante, at 786. It is also exemplified by the Court's apparent conclusion that legislative prayer is, at worst, a " `mere shadow' " on the Establishment Clause rather than a " `real threat' " to it. Ante, at 795, quoting Schempp, supra, at 308 (Goldberg, J., concurring). Simply put, the Court seems to regard legislative prayer as at most a de minimis violation, somehow unworthy of our attention. I frankly do not know what should be the proper disposition of features of our public life such as "God save the United States and this Honorable Court," "In God We Trust," "One Nation Under God," and the like. I might well adhere to the view expressed in Schempp that such mottos are consistent with the Establishment Clause, not because their import is de minimis, but because they have lost any true religious significance. 374 U. S, at 303-304 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). Legislative invocations, however, are very different.

First of all, as JUSTICE STEVENS' dissent so effectively highlights, legislative prayer, unlike mottos with fixed wordings, can easily turn narrowly and obviously sectarian.^[57] I agree with the Court that the federal judiciary should not sit as a board of censors on individual prayers, but to may mind the better way of avoiding that task is by striking down all official legislative invocations.

[819] More fundamentally, however, any practice of legislative prayer, even if it might look "nonsectarian" to nine Justices of the Supreme Court, will inevitably and continuously involve the State in one or another religious debate.^[58] Prayer is serious business — serious theological business — and it is not a mere "acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country" for the State to immerse itself in that business.^[59] Some religious individuals or groups find it theologically problematic to engage in joint religious exercises predominantly influenced by faiths not their own.^[60] Some might object even to the attempt to fashion a "non-sectarian" prayer.^[61] Some would find it impossible to participate in any "prayer opportunity," ante, at 794, marked by [820] Trinitarian references.^[62] Some would find a prayer not invoking the name of Christ to represent a flawed view of the relationship between human beings and God.^[63] Some might find any petitionary prayer to be improper.^[64] Some might find any prayer that lacked a petitionary element to be deficient.^[65] Some might be troubled by what they consider shallow public prayer,^[66] or nonspontaneous prayer,^[67] or prayer without adequate spiritual preparation or concentration.^[68] Some might, of course, have theological objections to any prayer sponsored by an organ of government.^[69] Some [821] might object on theological grounds to the level of political neutrality generally expected of government-sponsored invocational prayer.^[70] And some might object on theological grounds to the Court's requirement, ante, at 794, that prayer, even though religious, not be proselytizing.^[71] If these problems arose in the context of a religious objection to some otherwise decidedly secular activity, then whatever remedy there is would have to be found in the Free Exercise Clause. See n. 13, supra. But, in this case, we are faced with potential religious objections to an activity at the very center of religious life, and it is simply beyond the competence of government, and inconsistent with our conceptions of liberty, for the State to take upon itself the role of ecclesiastical arbiter.

IV

The argument is made occasionally that a strict separation of religion and state robs the Nation of its spiritual identity. I believe quite the contrary. It may be true that individuals cannot be "neutral" on the question of religion.^[72] But the judgment of the Establishment Clause is that neutrality by the organs of government on questions of religion is both possible and imperative. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the following concerning his travels through this land in the early 1830's:

"The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States. . . .

"In France I had seen the spirits of religion and of freedom almost always marching in opposite directions. In America I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over the same land.

[822] "My longing to understand the reason for this phenomenon increased daily.

"To find this out, I questioned the faithful of all communions; I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are the depositaries of the various creeds and have a personal interest in their survival. . . . I expressed my astonishment and revealed my doubts to each of them; I found that they all agreed with each other except about details; all thought that the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that." Democracy in America 295 (G. Lawrence trans., J. Mayer ed., 1969).

More recent history has only confirmed De Tocqueville's observations.^[73] If the Court had struck down legislative prayer today, it would likely have stimulated a furious reaction. But it would also, I am convinced, have invigorated both the "spirit of religion" and the "spirit of freedom."

I respectfully dissent.

JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.

In a democratically elected legislature, the religious beliefs of the chaplain tend to reflect the faith of the majority of the [823] lawmakers' constituents. Prayers may be said by a Catholic priest in the Massachusetts Legislature and by a Presbyterian minister in the Nebraska Legislature, but I would not expect to find a Jehovah's Witness or a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy or the Reverend Moon serving as the official chaplain in any state legislature. Regardless of the motivation of the majority that exercises the power to appoint the chaplain,^[74] it seems plain to me that the designation of a member of one religious faith to serve as the sole official chaplain of a state legislature for a period of 16 years constitutes the preference of one faith over another in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

The Court declines to "embark on a sensitive evaluation or to parse the content of a particular prayer." Ante, at 795. Perhaps it does so because it would be unable to explain away the clearly sectarian content of some of the prayers given by Nebraska's chaplain.^[75] Or perhaps the Court is unwilling to [824] acknowledge that the tenure of the chaplain must inevitably be conditioned on the acceptability of that content to the silent majority.

I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

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[1] Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General McGrath, Deputy Solicitor General Geller, Kathryn A. Oberly, Leonard Schaitman, and Michael Jay Singer filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal.

[2] Rules of the Nebraska Unicameral, Rules 1, 2, and 21. These prayers are recorded in the Legislative Journal and, upon the vote of the legislature, collected from time to time into prayerbooks, which are published at public expense. In 1975, 200 copies were printed; prayerbooks were also published in 1978 (200 copies), and 1979 (100 copies). In total, publication costs amounted to $458.56.

[3] Respondent named as defendants State Treasurer Frank Marsh, Chaplain Palmer, and the members of the Executive Board of the Legislative Council in their official capacity. All appear as petitioners before us.

[4] The District Court also enjoined the State from using public funds to publish the prayers, holding that this practice violated the Establishment Clause. Petitioners have represented to us that they did not challenge this facet of the District Court's decision, Tr. of Oral Arg. 19-20. Accordingly, no issue as to publishing these prayers is before us.

[5] Petitioners also sought review of their Tenth Amendment, federalism, and immunity claims. They did not, however, challenge the Court of Appeals' decision as to standing and we agree that Chambers, as a member of the legislature and as a taxpayer whose taxes are used to fund the chaplaincy, has standing to assert this claim.

[6] The practice in Colonies with established churches is, of course, not dispositive of the legislative prayer question. The history of Virginia is instructive, however, because that Colony took the lead in defining religious rights. In 1776, the Virginia Convention adopted a Declaration of Rights that included, as Article 16, a guarantee of religious liberty that is considered the precursor of both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. 1 B. Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 231-236 (1971); S. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America 491-492 (1970). Virginia was also among the first to disestablish its church. Both before and after disestablishment, however, Virginia followed the practice of opening legislative session with prayer. See, e.g.,J. House of Burgesses 34 (Nov. 20, 1712); Debates of the Convention of Virginia 470 (June 2, 1788) (ratification convention); J. House of Delegates of Va. 3 (June 24, 1788) (state legislature).

Rhode Island's experience mirrored that of Virginia. That Colony was founded by Roger Williams, who was among the first of his era to espouse the principle of religious freedom. Cobb, supra, at 426. As early as 1641, its legislature provided for liberty of conscience. Id., at 430. Yet the sessions of its ratification convention, like Virginia's, began with prayers, see W. Staples, Rhode Island in the Continental Congress, 1765-1790, p. 668 (1870) (reprinting May 26, 1790, minutes of the convention).

[7] History suggests that this may simply have been an oversight. At one point, Benjamin Franklin suggested that "henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business." 1 M. Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 452 (1911). His proposal was rejected not because the Convention was opposed to prayer, but because it was thought that a midstream adoption of the policy would highlight prior omissions and because "[t]he Convention had no funds." Ibid.; see also Stokes, at 455-456.

[8] The statute provided:

"[T]here shall be allowed to each chaplain of Congress . . . five hundred dollars per annum during the session of Congress."

This salary compares favorably with the Congressmen's own salaries of $6 for each day of attendance, 1 Stat. 70-71.

[9] It bears note that James Madison, one of the principal advocates of religious freedom in the Colonies and a drafter of the Establishment Clause, see, e.g., Cobb, supra n. 5, at 495-497; Stokes, at 537-552, was one of those appointed to undertake this task by the House of Representatives, H. R. Jour., at 11-12; Stokes, at 541-549, and voted for the bill authorizing payment of the chaplains, 1 Annals of Cong. 891 (1789).

[10] Interestingly, September 25, 1789, was also the day that the House resolved to request the President to set aside a Thanksgiving Day to acknowledge "the many signal favors of Almighty God," H. R. Jour., at 123. See also S. Jour., at 88.

[11] The chaplaincy was challenged in the 1850's by "sundry petitions praying Congress to abolish the office of chaplain," S. Rep. No. 376, 32d Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1853). After consideration by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the Senate decided that the practice did not violate the Establishment Clause, reasoning that a rule permitting Congress to elect chaplains is not a law establishing a national church and that the chaplaincy was no different from Sunday Closing Laws, which the Senate thought clearly constitutional. In addition, the Senate reasoned that since prayer was said by the very Congress that adopted the Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers could not have intended the First Amendment to forbid legislative prayer or viewed prayer as a step toward an established church. Id., at 2-4. In any event, the 35th Congress abandoned the practice of electing chaplains in favor of inviting local clergy to officiate, see Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., 14, 27-28 (1857). Elected chaplains were reinstituted by the 36th Congress, Cong. Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., 162 (1859); id., at 1016 (1860).

[12] See Brief for National Conference of State Legislatures as Amicus Curiae. Although most state legislatures begin their sessions with prayer, most do not have a formal rule requiring this procedure. But see, e.g., Alaska Legislature Uniform Rules 11 and 17 (1981) (providing for opening invocation); Ark. Rule of Senate 18 (1983); Colo. Legislator's Handbook, H. R. Rule 44 (1982); Idaho Rules of H. R. and Joint Rules 2 and 4 (1982); Ind. H. R. Rule 10 (1983); Kan. Rule of Senate 4 (1983); Kan. Rule of H. R. 103 (1983); Ky. General Assembly H. Res. 2 (1982); La. Rules of Order, Senate Rule 10.1 (1983); La. Rules of Order, H. R. Rule 8.1 (1982); Me. Senate and House Register, Rule of H. R. 4 (1983); Md. Senate and House of Delegates Rules 1 (1982 and 1983); Mo. Rules of Legislature, Joint Rule 1-1 (1983); N. H. Manual for the General Court of N. H., Rule of H. R. 52(a) (1981); N. D. Senate and H. R. Rules 101 and 301 (1983); Ore. Rule of Senate 4.01 (1983); Ore. Rule of H. R. 4.01 (1983) (opening session only); 104 Pa. Code § 11.11 (1983), 107 Pa. Code § 21.17 (1983); S. D. Official Directory and Rules of Senate and H. R., Joint Rule of the Senate and House 4-1 (1983); Tenn. Permanent Rules of Order of the Senate 1 and 6 (1981-1982) (provides for admission into Senate chamber of the "Chaplain of the Day"); Tex. Rule of H. R. 2, § 6 (1983); Utah Rules of Senate and H. R. 4.04 (1983); Va. Manual of Senate and House of Delegates, Rule of Senate 21(a) (1982) (session opens with "period of devotions"); Wash. Permanent Rule of H. R. 15 (1983); Wyo. Rule of Senate 4-1 (1983); Wyo. Rule of H. R. 2-1 (1983). See also P. Mason, Manual of Legislative Procedure § 586(2) (1979).

[13] It also could be noted that objections to prayer were raised, apparently successfully, in Pennsylvania while ratification of the Constitution was debated, Penn. Herald, Nov. 24, 1787, and that in the 1820's Madison expressed doubts concerning the chaplaincy practice. See L. Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom 248-249 (rev. ed. 1967), citing Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memoranda," 3 Wm. & Mary Quarterly 534, 558-559 (1946).

[14] In comparison, the First Congress provided for the appointment of two chaplains of different denominations who would alternate between the two Chambers on a weekly basis, S. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 12 (1820 ed.); H. R. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1826 ed.).

[15] Palmer characterizes his prayers as "nonsectarian," "Judeo Christian," and with "elements of the American civil religion." App. 75 and 87 (deposition of Robert E. Palmer). Although some of his earlier prayers were often explicitly Christian, Palmer removed all references to Christ after a 1980 complaint from a Jewish legislator. Id., at 49.

[16] It is also claimed that Nebraska's practice of collecting the prayers into books violates the First Amendment. Because the State did not appeal the District Court order enjoining further publications, see n. 3, supra, this issue is not before us and we express no opinion on it.

[17] Nebraska's practice is consistent with the manner in which the First Congress viewed its chaplains. Reports contemporaneous with the elections reported only the chaplains' names, and not their religions or church affiliations, see, e.g., 2 Gazette of the U. S. 18 (Apr. 25, 1789); 5 id., at 18 (Apr. 27, 1789) (listing nominees for Chaplain of the House); 6 id., at 23 (May 1, 1789). See also S. Rep. 376, supra n. 10, at 3.

[18] We note that Dr. Edward L. R. Elson served as Chaplain of the Senate of the United States from January 1969 to February 1981, a period of 12 years; Dr. Frederick Brown Harris served from February 1949 to January 1969, a period of 20 years. Senate Library, Chaplains of the Federal Government (rev. ed. 1982).

[19] The states' practices differ widely. Like Nebraska, several states choose a chaplain who serves for the entire legislative session. In other states, the prayer is offered by a different clergyman each day. Under either system, some states pay their chaplains and others do not. For States providing for compensation statutorily or by resolution, see, e.g., Cal. Gov't Code Ann. §§ 9170, 9171, 9320 (West 1980), and S. Res. No. 6, 1983-1984 Sess.; Colo. H. R. J., 54th Gen. Assembly, 1st Sess., 17-19 (Jan. 5, 1983); Conn. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 2-9 (1983-1984); Ga. H. R. Res. No. 3, § 1(e) (1983); Ga. S. Res. No. 3, § 1(c) (1983); Iowa Code § 2.11 (1983); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 21.150 (1978); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 218.200 (1981); N. J. Stat. Ann. § 52:11-2 (West 1970); N. M. Const., Art. IV, § 9; Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 74, §§ 291.12 and 292.1 (West Supp. 1982-1983); Vt. Stat. Ann., Tit. 2, § 19 (Supp. 1982); Wis. Stat. Ann. § 13.125 (West Supp. 1982).

[20] See Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 312-313 (1952); cf. Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 213 (1963).

[21] "The saying of invocational prayers in legislative chambers, state or federal, and the appointment of legislative chaplains, might well represent no involvements of the kind prohibited by the Establishment Clause. Legislators, federal and state, are mature adults who may presumably absent themselves from such public and ceremonial exercises without incurring any penalty, direct or indirect." Schempp, supra, at 299-300 (BRENNAN, J., concurring) (footnote omitted).

[22] See, e.g., Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., 459 U. S. 116, 123 (1982); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 271 (1981); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U. S. 229, 236 (1977); Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 772-773 (1973).

[23] See Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S. 39, 41 (1980) (finding "pre-eminent purpose" of state statute requiring posting of Ten Commandments in each public school classroom to be "plainly religious in nature," despite legislative recitations of "supposed secular purpose"); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 107-109 (1968) (state "anti-evolution" statute clearly religious in purpose); cf. Schempp, supra,at 223-224 (public school exercise consisting of Bible reading and recitation of Lord's Prayer).

As Reverend Palmer put the matter: "I would say that I strive to relate the Senators and their helpers to the divine." Palmer Deposition, at 28. "[M]y purpose is to provide an opportunity for Senators to be drawn closer to their understanding of God as they understand God. In order that the divine wisdom might be theirs as they conduct their business for the day." Id., at 46. Cf. Prayers of the Chaplain of the Massachusetts Senate, 1963-1968, p. 58 (1969) (hereinafter Massachusetts Senate Prayers) ("Save this moment, O God, from merely being a gesture to custom").

[24] Cf. Stone v. Graham, supra,at 42.

The Court argues that legislators are adults, "presumably not readily susceptible to . . . peer pressure." Ante, at 792. I made a similar observation in my concurring opinion in Schempp. See n. 2, supra. Quite apart from the debatable constitutional significance of this argument, see Schempp, 374 U. S., at 224-225; Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S., at 430, I am now most uncertain as to whether it is even factually correct: Legislators, by virtue of their instinct for political survival, are often loath to assert in public religious views that their constituents might perceive as hostile or nonconforming. See generally P. Blanshard, God and Man in Washington 94-106 (1960).

[25] As I point out infra, at 803-804, 808, official religious exercises may also be of significant symbolic detriment to religion.

[26] See Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., supra, at 125, n. 9; Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664, 674-676 (1970).

[27] In Lemon, we struck down certain state statutes providing aid to sectarian schools, in part because "the program requires the government to examine the school's records in order to determine how much of the total expenditures is attributable to secular education and how much to religious activity." 403 U. S., at 620. In this case, by the admission of the very government officials involved, supervising the practice of legislative prayer requires those officials to determine if particular members of the clergy and particular prayers are "too explicitly Christian," App. 49 (testimony of Rev. Palmer) or consistent with "the various religious preferences that the Senators may or may not have," id., at 48 (same), or likely to "inject some kind of a religious dogma" into the proceedings, id., at 68 (testimony of Frank Lewis, Chairman of the Nebraska Legislature Executive Board).

[28] See id., at 49 (testimony of Rev. Palmer) (discussing objections raised by some Senators to Christological references in certain of his prayers and in a prayer offered by a guest member of the clergy).

[29] As the Court points out, the practice of legislative prayers in Congress gave rise to serious controversy at points in the 19th century. Ante, at 788-789, n. 10. Opposition to the practice in that period arose "both on the part of certain radicals and of some rather extreme Protestant sects. These have been inspired by very different motives but have united in opposing government chaplaincies as breaking down the line of demarcation between Church and State. The sectarians felt that religion had nothing to do with the State, while the radicals felt that the State had nothing to do with religion." 3 A. Stokes, Church and State in the United States 130 (1950) (hereinafter Stokes). See also id.,at 133-134. Similar controversies arose in the States. See Report of the Select Committee of the New York State Assembly on the Several Memorials Against Appointing Chaplains to the Legislature (1832) (recommending that practice be abolished), reprinted in J. Blau, Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America 141-156 (1949).

In more recent years, particular prayers and particular chaplains in the state legislatures have periodically led to serious political divisiveness along religious lines. See, e.g., The Oregonian, Apr. 1, 1983, p. C8 ("Despite protests from at least one representative, a follower of an Indian guru was allowed to give the prayer at the start of Thursday's [Oregon] House [of Representatives] session. Shortly before Ma Anand Sheela began the invocation, about a half-dozen representatives walked off the House floor in apparent protest of the prayer"); Cal. Senate Jour., 37th Sess., 171-173, 307-308 (1907) (discussing request by a State Senator that State Senate Chaplain not use the name of Christ in legislative prayer, and response by one local clergyman claiming that the legislator who made the request had committed a "crowning infamy" and that his "words were those of an irreverent and godless man"). See also infra, at 805-806, 808, 818-821.

[30] The Lemon tests do not, of course, exhaust the set of formal doctrines that can be brought to bear on the issues before us today. Last Term, for example, we made clear that a state program that discriminated among religious faiths, and not merely in favor of all religious faiths, "must be invalidated unless it is justified by a compelling governmental interest, cf. Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 269-270 (1981), and unless it is closely fitted to further that interest, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 116-117 (1943)." Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 247 (1982). In this case, the appointment of a single chaplain for 16 years, and the evident impossibility of a Buddhist monk or Sioux Indian religious worker being appointed for a similar period, App. 69-70, see post, p. 822 (STEVENS, J., dissenting), might well justify application of the Larson test. Moreover, given the pains that petitioners have gone through to emphasize the "ceremonial" function of legislative prayer, Brief for Petitioners 16, and given the case with which a similar "ceremonial" function could be performed without the necessity for prayer, cf. supra, at 797-798, I have little doubt that the Nebraska practice, at least, would fail the Larsontest.

In addition, I still find compelling the Establishment Clause test that I articulated in Schempp:

"What the Framers meant to foreclose, and what our decisions under the Establishment Clause have forbidden, are those involvements of religious with secular institutions which (a) serve the essentially religious activities of religious institutions; (b) employ the organs of government for essentially religious purposes; or (c) use essentially religious means to serve governmental ends, where secular means would suffice." 374 U. S., at 294-295.

See Roemer v. Maryland Board of Public Works, 426 U. S. 736, 770-771 (1976) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting); Hunt v. McNair, 413 U. S. 734, 750 (1973) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting); Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 643 (BRENNAN, J., concurring); Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S., at 680-681 (BRENNAN, J., concurring). For reasons similar to those I have already articulated, I believe that the Nebraska practice of legislative prayer, as well as most other comparable practices, would fail at least the second and third elements of this test.

[31] See also, e.g., Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., 459 U. S., at 122-123; Stone v. Graham, 449 U. S., at 42; Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 214-225; id., at 232-234, 243-253 (BRENNAN, J., concurring).

[32] See, e.g., Larson v. Valente, supra, at 244-247; Schempp, supra, at 222; Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488, 490, 494-496 (1961); McDaniel v. Paty,435 U. S. 618, 636 (1978) (BRENNAN, J., concurring in judgment).

The Free Exercise Clause serves a similar function, though often in a quite different way. In particular, we have held that, under certain circumstances, an otherwise constitutional law may not be applied as against persons for whom the law creates a burden on religious belief or practice. See, e.g., Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U. S. 707 (1981); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963).

[33] See, e.g., Presbyterian Church v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church, 393 U. S. 440 (1969); United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78 (1944).

[34] See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S., at 614-622; NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 501-504 (1979).

This and the remaining purposes that I discuss cannot be reduced simply to a question of individual liberty. A court, for example, will refuse to decide an essentially religious issue even if the issue is otherwise properly before the court, and even if it is asked to decide it.

[35] Consider, in addition to the formal authorities cited in text, the following words by a leading Methodist clergyman:

"[Some propose] to reassert religious values by posting the Ten Commandments on every school-house wall, by erecting cardboard nativity shrines on every corner, by writing God's name on our money, and by using His Holy Name in political oratory. Is this not the ultimate in profanity?

.....

"What is the result of all this display of holy things in public places? Does it make the market-place more holy? Does it improve people? Does it change their character or motives? On the contrary, the sacred symbols are thereby cheapened and degraded. The effect is often that of a television commercial on a captive audience — boredom and resentment." Kelley, Beyond Separation of Church and State, 5 J. Church & State 181, 190-191 (1963).

Consider also this condensed version of words first written in 1954 by one observer of the American scene:

"The manifestations of religion in Washington have become pretty thick. We have had opening prayers, Bible breakfasts, [and so on]; now we have added . . . a change in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge, which has served well enough in times more pious than ours, has now had its rhythm upset but its anti-Communist spirituality improved by the insertion of the phrase `under God.' . . . A bill has been introduced directing the post office to cancel mail with the slogan `Pray for Peace.' (The devout, in place of daily devotions, can just read what is stuck and stamped all over the letters in their mail.)

.....

"To note all this in a deflationary tone is not to say that religion and politics don't mix. Politicians should develop deeper religious convictions, and religious folk should develop wiser political convictions; both need to relate political duties to religious faith — but not in an unqualified and public way that confuses the absolute and emotional loyalties of religion with the relative and shifting loyalties of politics.

.....

"All religious affirmations are in danger of standing in contradiction to the life that is lived under them, but none more so than these general, inoffensive, and externalized ones which are put together for public purposes." W. Miller, Piety along the Potomac 41-46 (1964).

See also, e.g., Prayer in Public Schools and Buildings — Federal Court Jurisdiction, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., 46-47 (1980) (testimony of M. William Howard, President of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U. S. A.) (hereinafter Hearings); cf. Fox, The National Day of Prayer, 29 Theology Today 258 (1972).

[36] It is sometimes argued that to apply the Establishment Clause alienates those who wish to see a tighter bond between religion and state. This is obviously true. (I would vigorously deny, however, any claim that the Establishment Clause disfavors the much broader class of persons for whom religion is a necessary and important part of life. See supra, at 803-804; infra, at 821-822.) But I would submit that even this dissatisfaction is tempered by the knowledge that society is adhering to a fixed rule of neutrality rather than rejecting a particular expression of religious belief.

[37] Pfeffer, The Deity in American Constitutional History, 23 J. Church & State 215, 217 (1981). See also 1 Stokes 523.

[38] See L. Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom 266 (rev. ed. 1967) (hereinafter Pfeffer). Jefferson expressed his views as follows:

" `I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises. [I]t is only proposed that I should recommend not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer. [But] I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrine . . . . Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining of them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and the right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.' " Ibid., quoting 11 Jefferson's Writings 428-430 (Monticello ed. 1905).

[39] See also infra, at 819-821.

[40] In light of the discussion in text, I am inclined to agree with the Court that the Nebraska practice of legislative prayer is not significantly more troubling than that found in other States. For example, appointing one chaplain for 16 years may give the impression of "establishing" one particular religion, but the constant attention to the selection process which would be the result of shorter terms might well increase the opportunity for religious discord and entanglement. The lesson I draw from all this, however, is that any regular practice of official invocational prayer must be deemed unconstitutional.

[41] See, e.g., Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U. S. 1 (1947) (transportation of students to and from school); Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970) (charitable tax exemptions).

[42] The Court does sensibly, if not respectfully, ascribe this view to the Founding Fathers rather than to itself. See ante, at 792.

[43] A. Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion 25-26 (T. Seed trans., 1957 ed.). See also, e.g., W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience 352-353 (New American Library ed., 1958); F. Heiler, Prayer xiii-xvi (S. McComb trans., 1958 ed.).

[44] See Schempp, 374 U. S., at 300-304 (BRENNAN, J., concurring); Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 235-236 (1948) (Jackson, J., concurring).

[45] See Schempp, supra, at 225.

[46] Sabatier, supra, at 25 (emphasis added).

[47] A. Heschel, Man's Quest for God 30 (1954).

[48] Justice Douglas' famous observation that "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being," Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S., at 313, see ante,at 792, arose in precisely such a context. Indeed, a more complete quotation from the paragraph in which that statement appears is instructive here:

"We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma. . . . The government must be neutral when it comes to competition between sects. It may not thrust any sect on any person. It may not make a religious observance compulsory. It may not coerce anyone to attend church, to observe a religious holiday, or to take religious instruction. But it can close its doors or suspend its operations as to those who want to repair to their religious sanctuary for worship or instruction. No more than that is undertaken here." 343 U. S., at 313-314.

[49] Indeed, the sort of historical argument made by the Court should be advanced with some hesitation in light of certain other skeletons in the congressional closet. See, e.g., An Act for the Punishment of certain Crimes against the United States, § 16, 1 Stat. 116 (1790) (enacted by the First Congress and requiring that persons convicted of certain theft offenses "be publicly whipped, not exceeding thirty-nine stripes"); Act of July 23, 1866, 14 Stat. 216 (reaffirming the racial segregation of the public schools in the District of Columbia; enacted exactly one week after Congress proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the States).

[50] See generally D. Morgan, Congress and the Constitution (1966); E. Eidenberg & R. Morey, An Act of Congress (1969); cf. C. Miller, The Supreme Court and the Uses of History 61-64 (1969).

One commentator has pointed out that the chaplaincy established by the First Congress was "a carry-over from the days of the Continental Congress, which . . . exercised plenary jurisdiction in matters of religion; and ceremonial practices such as [this] are not easily dislodged after becoming so firmly established." Pfeffer 170.

[51] As a practical matter, "we know practically nothing about what went on in the state legislatures" during the process of ratifying the Bill of Rights. 2 B. Schwartz, The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History 1171 (1971). Moreover, looking to state practices is, as the Court admits, ante, at 787, n. 5, of dubious relevance because the Establishment Clause did not originally apply to the States. Nevertheless, these difficulties give us no warrant to give controlling weight on the constitutionality of a specific practice to the collateral acts of the Members of Congress who proposed the Bill of Rights to the States.

[52] See also 1 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution § 406 (1st ed., 1833); Fleet, Madison's "Detached Memoranda," 3 Wm. & Mary Quarterly 534, 544 (1946); Wofford, The Blinding Light: The Uses of History in Constitutional Interpretation, 31 U. Chi. L. Rev. 502, 508-509 (1964).

[53] See generally 1 Annals of Cong. 431-433, 662, 730 (1789); Barron v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 250 (1833); E. Dumbauld, The Bill of Rights and What it Means Today 10-34 (1957); 2 Schwartz, supra, at 697-980, 983-984.

[54] See, e.g., Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S. 677 (1973) (gender discrimination); Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483 (1954) (race discrimination); Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149, 155-158 (1973) (jury trial); Trop v. Dulles, 356 U. S. 86, 101 (1958) (cruel and unusual punishment); Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967) (search and seizure).

[55] See Pfeffer 266; 1 Stokes 513.

[56] 3 Story, supra, § 1871. Cf. Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 470-471 (1892); Vidal v. Girard's Executors, 2 How. 127, 197-199 (1844).

[57] Indeed, the prayers said by Reverend Palmer in the Nebraska Legislature are relatively "nonsectarian" in comparison with some other examples. See, e.g., Massachusetts Senate Prayers 11, 14-17, 71-73, 108; Invocations by Rev. Fred S. Holloman, Chaplain of the Kansas Senate, 1980-1982 Legislative Sessions, pp. 40-41, 46-47, 101-102, 106-107.

[58] See generally Cahn, On Government and Prayer, 37 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 981 (1962); Hearings, at 47 (testimony of M. Howard) ("there is simply no such thing as `nonsectarian' prayer . . .").

Cf. N. Y. Times, Sept. 4, 1982, p. 8, col. 2 ("Mr. [Jerry] Falwell [founder of the organization "Moral Majority"] is quoted as telling a meeting of the Religious Newswriters Association in New Orleans that because members of the Moral Majority represented a variety of denominations, `if we ever opened a Moral Majority meeting with prayer, silent or otherwise, we would disintegrate' ").

[59] I put to one side, not because of its irrelevance, but because of its obviousness, the fact that any official prayer will pose difficulties both for nonreligious persons and for religious persons whose faith does not include the institution of prayer, see, e.g., H. Smith, The Religions of Man 138 (Perennial Library ed. 1965) (discussing Theravada Buddhism).

[60] See, e.g., Hearings, at 46-47 (testimony of M. Howard) ("We are told that [school] prayers could be `nonsectarian,' or that they could be offered from various religious traditions in rotation. I believe such a solution is least acceptable to those most fervently devoted to their own religion"); S. Freehof, Modern Reform Responsa 71 (1971) (ecumenical services not objectionable in principle, but they should not take place too frequently); J. Bancroft, Communication in Religious Worship with Non-Catholics (1943).

[61] See, e.g., Hearings, at 47 (testimony of M. Howard) (nonsectarian prayer, even if were possible, would likely be "offensive to devout members of all religions").

[62] See, e.g., S. Freehof, Reform Responsa 115 (1960).

[63] See, e.g., D. Bloesch, The Struggle of Prayer 36-37 (1980) (hereinafter Bloesch) ("Because our Savior plays such a crucial role in the life of prayer, we should always pray having in mind his salvation and intercession. We should pray not only in the spirit of Christ but also in the name of Christ. . . . To pray in his name means that we recognize that our prayers cannot penetrate the tribunal of God unless they are presented to the Father by the Son, our one Savior and Redeemer"); cf. Fischer, The Role of Christ in Christian Prayer, 41 Encounter 153, 155-156 (1980).

As the Court points out, Reverend Palmer eliminated the Christological references in his prayers after receiving complaints from some of the State Senators. Ante, at 793, n. 14. Suppose, however, that Reverend Palmer had said that he could not in good conscience omit some references. Should he have been dismissed? And, if so, what would have been the implications of that action under both the Establishment and the Free Exercise Clauses?

[64] See, e.g., Meister Eckhart 88-89 (R. Blakney trans. 1941); T. Merton, Contemplative Prayer (1971); J. Williams, What Americans Believe and How they Worship 412-413 (3d ed. 1969) (hereinafter Williams) (discussing Christian Science belief that only proper prayer is prayer of communion).

[65] See, e.g., Bloesch 72-73; Stump, Petitionary Prayer, 16 Am. Philosophical Q. 81 (1979); Wells, Prayer: Rebelling Against the Status Quo, Christianity Today, Nov. 2, 1979, pp. 32-34.

[66] See, e.g., Matthew 6:6 ("But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly").

[67] See, e.g., Williams 274-275 (discussing traditional Quaker practice).

[68] See, e.g., Heschel, supra n. 28, at 53; Heiler, supra n. 24, at 283-285.

[69] See, e.g., Williams 256; 3 Stokes 133-134; Hearings, at 65-66 (statement of Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs).

[70] See, e.g., R. Niebuhr, Faith and Politics 100 (R. Stone ed. 1968) ("A genuinely prophetic religion speaks a word of judgment against every ruler and every nation, even against good rulers and good nations").

[71] See, e.g., Bloesch 159 ("World evangelization is to be numbered among the primary goals in prayer, since the proclaiming of the gospel is what gives glory to God").

[72] See W. James, The Will to Believe 1-31 (1st ed. 1897).

[73] See generally J. Murray, We Hold These Truths 73-74 (1960) (American religion "has benefited . . . by the maintenance, even in exaggerated form, of the distinction between church and state"); Martin, Revived Dogma and New Cult, 111 Daedalus 53, 54-55 (1982) (The "icy thinness of religion in the cold airs of Northwest Europe and in the vapors of Protestant England is highly significant, because it represents a fundamental difference in the Protestant world between North America and the original exporting countries. In all those countries with stable monarchies and Protestant state churches, [religious] institutional vitality is low. In North America, lacking either monarchy or state church, it is high" (footnote omitted)).

[74] The Court holds that a chaplain's 16-year tenure is constitutional as long as there is no proof that his reappointment "stemmed from an impermissible motive." Ante, at 793. Thus, once again, the Court makes the subjective motivation of legislators the decisive criterion for judging the constitutionality of a state legislative practice. Cf. Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613 (1982), and City of Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55 (1980). Although that sort of standard maximizes the power of federal judges to review state action, it is not conducive to the evenhanded administration of the law. See 458 U. S., at 642-650 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); 446 U. S., at 91-94 (STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment).

[75]On March 20, 1978, for example, Chaplain Palmer gave the following invocation:

"Father in heaven, the suffering and death of your son brought life to the whole world moving our hearts to praise your glory. The power of the cross reveals your concern for the world and the wonder of Christ crucified.

" `The days of his life-giving death and glorious resurrection are approaching. This is the hour when he triumphed over Satan's pride; the time when we celebrate the great event of our redemption.

"We are reminded of the price he paid when we pray with the Psalmist:

" `My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, far from my prayer, from the words of my cry?

" `O my God, I cry out by day, and you answer not; by night, and there is no relief for me.

" `Yet you are enthroned in the Holy Place, O glory of Israel!

" `In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.

" `To you they cried, and they escaped; in you they trusted, and they were not put to shame.

" `But I am a worm, not a man; the scorn of men, despised by the people.

" `All who see me scoff at me; they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads:

" `He relied on the Lord; let Him deliver him, let Him rescue him, if He loves him.' Amen." App. 103-104.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT

[579] Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, and Souter, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., post, p. 599, and Souter, J., post, p. 609, filed concurring opinions, in which Stevens and O'Connor, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and White and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 631.

Charles J. Cooper argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Michael A. Carvin, Peter J. Ferrara, Robert J. Cynkar, Joseph A. Rotella, and Jay Alan Sekulow.

Solicitor General Starr argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Gerson, Deputy Solicitor General Roberts, Deputy Assistant Attorney General McGinnis, and Richard H. Seamon.

Sandra A. Blanding argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Steven R. Shapiro and John A. Powell.^[1]

[580] Justice Kennedy, delivered the opinion of the Court.

School principals in the public school system of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, are permitted to invite members of the clergy to offer invocation and benediction prayers as part of the formal graduation ceremonies for middle schools and for high schools. The question before us is whether including clerical members who offer prayers as part of the official school graduation ceremony is consistent with the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, provisions the Fourteenth Amendment makes applicable with full force to the States and their school districts.

[581] I

A

Deborah Weisman graduated from Nathan Bishop Middle School, a public school in Providence, at a formal ceremony in June 1989. She was about 14 years old. For many years it has been the policy of the Providence School Committee and the Superintendent of Schools to permit principals to invite members of the clergy to give invocations and benedictions at middle school and high school graduations. Many, but not all, of the principals elected to include prayers as part of the graduation ceremonies. Acting for himself and his daughter, Deborah's father, Daniel Weisman, objected to any prayers at Deborah's middle school graduation, but to no avail. The school principal, petitioner Robert E. Lee, invited a rabbi to deliver prayers at the graduation exercises for Deborah's class. Rabbi Leslie Gutterman, of the Temple Beth El in Providence, accepted.

It has been the custom of Providence school officials to provide invited clergy with a pamphlet entitled "Guidelines for Civic Occasions," prepared by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Guidelines recommend that public prayers at nonsectarian civic ceremonies be composed with "inclusiveness and sensitivity," though they acknowledge that "[p]rayer of any kind may be inappropriate on some civic occasions." App. 20-21. The principal gave Rabbi Gutterman the pamphlet before the graduation and advised him the invocation and benediction should be nonsectarian. Agreed Statement of Facts ¶ 17, id., at 13.

Rabbi Gutterman's prayers were as follows:

"INVOCATION

"God of the Free, Hope of the Brave:

"For the legacy of America where diversity is celebrated and the rights of minorities are protected, we [582] thank You. May these young men and women grow up to enrich it.

"For the liberty of America, we thank You. May these new graduates grow up to guard it.

"For the political process of America in which all its citizens may participate, for its court system where all may seek justice we thank You. May those we honor this morning always turn to it in trust.

"For the destiny of America we thank You. May the graduates of Nathan Bishop Middle School so live that they might help to share it.

"May our aspirations for our country and for these young people, who are our hope for the future, be richly fulfilled. AMEN" "BENEDICTION

"O God, we are grateful to You for having endowed us with the capacity for learning which we have celebrated on this joyous commencement.

"Happy families give thanks for seeing their children achieve an important milestone. Send Your blessings upon the teachers and administrators who helped prepare them.

"The graduates now need strength and guidance for the future, help them to understand that we are not complete with academic knowledge alone. We must each strive to fulfill what You require of us all: To do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly.

"We give thanks to You, Lord, for keeping us alive, sustaining us and allowing us to reach this special, happy occasion. AMEN"

Id., at 22-23.

[583] The record in this case is sparse in many respects, and we are unfamiliar with any fixed custom or practice at middle school graduations, referred to by the school district as "promotional exercises." We are not so constrained with reference to high schools, however. High school graduations are such an integral part of American cultural life that we can with confidence describe their customary features, confirmed by aspects of the record and by the parties' representations at oral argument. In the Providence school system, most high school graduation ceremonies are conducted away from the school, while most middle school ceremonies are held on school premises. Classical High School, which Deborah now attends, has conducted its graduation ceremonies on school premises. Agreed Statement of Facts ¶ 37, id., at 17. The parties stipulate that attendance at graduation ceremonies is voluntary. Agreed Statement of Facts ¶ 41, id., at 18. The graduating students enter as a group in a processional, subject to the direction of teachers and school officials, and sit together, apart from their families. We assume the clergy's participation in any high school graduation exercise would be about what it was at Deborah's middle school ceremony. There the students stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and remained standing during the rabbi's prayers. Tr. of Oral Arg. 38. Even on the assumption that there was a respectful moment of silence both before and after the prayers, the rabbi's two presentations must not have extended much beyond a minute each, if that. We do not know whether he remained on stage during the whole ceremony, or whether the students received individual diplomas on stage, or if he helped to congratulate them.

The school board (and the United States, which supports it as amicus curiae ) argued that these short prayers and others like them at graduation exercises are of profound meaning to many students and parents throughout this country who consider that due respect and acknowledgment for divine guidance and for the deepest spiritual aspirations of [584] our people ought to be expressed at an event as important in life as a graduation. We assume this to be so in addressing the difficult case now before us, for the significance of the prayers lies also at the heart of Daniel and Deborah Weisman's case.

B

Deborah's graduation was held on the premises of Nathan Bishop Middle School on June 29, 1989. Four days before the ceremony, Daniel Weisman, in his individual capacity as a Providence taxpayer and as next friend of Deborah, sought a temporary restraining order in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island to prohibit school officials from including an invocation or benediction in the graduation ceremony. The court denied the motion for lack of adequate time to consider it. Deborah and her family attended the graduation, where the prayers were recited. In July 1989, Daniel Weisman filed an amended complaint seeking a permanent injunction barring petitioners, various officials of the Providence public schools, from inviting the clergy to deliver invocations and benedictions at future graduations. We find it unnecessary to address Daniel Weisman's taxpayer standing, for a live and justiciable controversy is before us. Deborah Weisman is enrolled as a student at Classical High School in Providence and from the record it appears likely, if not certain, that an invocation and benediction will be conducted at her high school graduation. Agreed Statement of Facts ¶ 38, App. 17.

The case was submitted on stipulated facts. The District Court held that petitioners' practice of including invocations and benedictions in public school graduations violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and it enjoined petitioners from continuing the practice. 728 F. Supp. 68 (1990). The court applied the three-part Establishment Clause test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971). Under that test as described in our past cases, to satisfy the Establishment Clause a governmental [585] practice must (1) reflect a clearly secular purpose; (2) have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and (3) avoid excessive government entanglement with religion. Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 773 (1973). The District Court held that petitioners' actions violated the second part of the test, and so did not address either the first or the third. The court decided, based on its reading of our precedents, that the effects test of Lemon is violated whenever government action "creates an identification of the state with a religion, or with religion in general," 728 F. Supp., at 71, or when "the effect of the governmental action is to endorse one religion over another, or to endorse religion in general." Id., at 72. The court determined that the practice of including invocations and benedictions, even so-called nonsectarian ones, in public school graduations creates an identification of governmental power with religious practice, endorses religion, and violates the Establishment Clause. In so holding the court expressed the determination not to follow Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools, 822 F. 2d 1406 (1987), in which the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, relying on our decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), held that benedictions and invocations at public school graduations are not always unconstitutional. In Marsh we upheld the constitutionality of the Nebraska State Legislature's practice of opening each of its sessions with a prayer offered by a chaplain paid out of public funds. The District Court in this case disagreed with the Sixth Circuit's reasoning because it believed that Marsh was a narrow decision, "limited to the unique situation of legislative prayer," and did not have any relevance to school prayer cases. 728 F. Supp., at 74.

On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. The majority opinion by Judge Torruella adopted the opinion of the District Court. 908 F. 2d 1090 (1990). Judge Bownes joined the majority, but wrote a separate concurring opinion in which he decided that the [586] practices challenged here violated all three parts of the Lemon test. Judge Bownes went on to agree with the District Court that Marsh had no application to school prayer cases and that the Stein decision was flawed. He concluded by suggesting that under Establishment Clause rules no prayer, even one excluding any mention of the Deity, could be offered at a public school graduation ceremony. 908 F. 2d, at 1090-1097. Judge Campbell dissented, on the basis of Marsh and Stein. He reasoned that if the prayers delivered were nonsectarian, and if school officials ensured that persons representing a variety of beliefs and ethical systems were invited to present invocations and benedictions, there was no violation of the Establishment Clause. 908 F. 2d, at 1099. We granted certiorari, 499 U. S. 918 (1991), and now affirm.

II

These dominant facts mark and control the confines of our decision: State officials direct the performance of a formal religious exercise at promotional and graduation ceremonies for secondary schools. Even for those students who object to the religious exercise, their attendance and participation in the state-sponsored religious activity are in a fair and real sense obligatory, though the school district does not require attendance as a condition for receipt of the diploma.

This case does not require us to revisit the difficult questions dividing us in recent cases, questions of the definition and full scope of the principles governing the extent of permitted accommodation by the State for the religious beliefs and practices of many of its citizens. See County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573 (1989); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668 (1984). For without reference to those principles in other contexts, the controlling precedents as they relate to prayer and religious exercise in primary and secondary public schools compel the holding here that the policy of the city of Providence is an [587] unconstitutional one. We can decide the case without reconsidering the general constitutional framework by which public schools' efforts to accommodate religion are measured. Thus we do not accept the invitation of petitioners and amicus the United States to reconsider our decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra. The government involvement with religious activity in this case is pervasive, to the point of creating a state-sponsored and state-directed religious exercise in a public school. Conducting this formal religious observance conflicts with settled rules pertaining to prayer exercises for students, and that suffices to determine the question before us.

The principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed by the Establishment Clause. It is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which "establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so." Lynch, supra, at 678; see also County of Allegheny, supra, at 591, quoting Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1947). The State's involvement in the school prayers challenged today violates these central principles.

That involvement is as troubling as it is undenied. A school official, the principal, decided that an invocation and a benediction should be given; this is a choice attributable to the State, and from a constitutional perspective it is as if a state statute decreed that the prayers must occur. The principal chose the religious participant, here a rabbi, and that choice is also attributable to the State. The reason for the choice of a rabbi is not disclosed by the record, but the potential for divisiveness over the choice of a particular member of the clergy to conduct the ceremony is apparent.

Divisiveness, of course, can attend any state decision respecting religions, and neither its existence nor its potential [588] necessarily invalidates the State's attempts to accommodate religion in all cases. The potential for divisiveness is of particular relevance here though, because it centers around an overt religious exercise in a secondary school environment where, as we discuss below, see infra, at 593-594, subtle coercive pressures exist and where the student had no real alternative which would have allowed her to avoid the fact or appearance of participation.

The State's role did not end with the decision to include a prayer and with the choice of a clergyman. Principal Lee provided Rabbi Gutterman with a copy of the "Guidelines for Civic Occasions," and advised him that his prayers should be nonsectarian. Through these means the principal directed and controlled the content of the prayers. Even if the only sanction for ignoring the instructions were that the rabbi would not be invited back, we think no religious representative who valued his or her continued reputation and effectiveness in the community would incur the State's displeasure in this regard. It is a cornerstone principle of our Establishment Clause jurisprudence that "it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government," Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 425 (1962), and that is what the school officials attempted to do.

Petitioners argue, and we find nothing in the case to refute it, that the directions for the content of the prayers were a good-faith attempt by the school to ensure that the sectarianism which is so often the flash point for religious animosity be removed from the graduation ceremony. The concern is understandable, as a prayer which uses ideas or images identified with a particular religion may foster a different sort of sectarian rivalry than an invocation or benediction in terms more neutral. The school's explanation, however, does not resolve the dilemma caused by its participation. The question is not the good faith of the school in attempting to make [589] the prayer acceptable to most persons, but the legitimacy of its undertaking that enterprise at all when the object is to produce a prayer to be used in a formal religious exercise which students, for all practical purposes, are obliged to attend.

We are asked to recognize the existence of a practice of nonsectarian prayer, prayer within the embrace of what is known as the Judeo-Christian tradition, prayer which is more acceptable than one which, for example, makes explicit references to the God of Israel, or to Jesus Christ, or to a patron saint. There may be some support, as an empirical observation, to the statement of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, picked up by Judge Campbell's dissent in the Court of Appeals in this case, that there has emerged in this country a civic religion, one which is tolerated when sectarian exercises are not. Stein, 822 F. 2d, at 1409; 908 F. 2d 1090, 1098-1099 (CA1 1990) (Campbell, J., dissenting) (case below); see also Note, Civil Religion and the Establishment Clause, 95 Yale L. J. 1237 (1986). If common ground can be defined which permits once conflicting faiths to express the shared conviction that there is an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention, the sense of community and purpose sought by all decent societies might be advanced. But though the First Amendment does not allow the government to stifle prayers which aspire to these ends, neither does it permit the government to undertake that task for itself.

The First Amendment's Religion Clauses mean that religious beliefs and religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by the State. The design of the Constitution is that preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere, which itself is promised freedom to pursue that mission. It must not be forgotten then, that while concern must be given to define the protection granted to an objector or a dissenting nonbeliever, these same Clauses exist to protect religion from government interference. [590] James Madison, the principal author of the Bill of Rights, did not rest his opposition to a religious establishment on the sole ground of its effect on the minority. A principal ground for his view was: "[E]xperience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation." Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), in 8 Papers of James Madison 301 (W. Rachal, R. Rutland, B. Ripel, & F. Teute eds. 1973).

These concerns have particular application in the case of school officials, whose effort to monitor prayer will be perceived by the students as inducing a participation they might otherwise reject. Though the efforts of the school officials in this case to find common ground appear to have been a good-faith attempt to recognize the common aspects of religions and not the divisive ones, our precedents do not permit school officials to assist in composing prayers as an incident to a formal exercise for their students. Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 425. And these same precedents caution us to measure the idea of a civic religion against the central meaning of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, which is that all creeds must be tolerated and none favored. The suggestion that government may establish an official or civic religion as a means of avoiding the establishment of a religion with more specific creeds strikes us as a contradiction that cannot be accepted.

The degree of school involvement here made it clear that the graduation prayers bore the imprint of the State and thus put school-age children who objected in an untenable position. We turn our attention now to consider the position of the students, both those who desired the prayer and she who did not.

To endure the speech of false ideas or offensive content and then to counter it is part of learning how to live in a pluralistic society, a society which insists upon open discourse towards the end of a tolerant citizenry. And tolerance [591] presupposes some mutuality of obligation. It is argued that our constitutional vision of a free society requires confidence in our own ability to accept or reject ideas of which we do not approve, and that prayer at a high school graduation does nothing more than offer a choice. By the time they are seniors, high school students no doubt have been required to attend classes and assemblies and to complete assignments exposing them to ideas they find distasteful or immoral or absurd or all of these. Against this background, students may consider it an odd measure of justice to be subjected during the course of their educations to ideas deemed offensive and irreligious, but to be denied a brief, formal prayer ceremony that the school offers in return. This argument cannot prevail, however. It overlooks a fundamental dynamic of the Constitution.

The First Amendment protects speech and religion by quite different mechanisms. Speech is protected by ensuring its full expression even when the government participates, for the very object of some of our most important speech is to persuade the government to adopt an idea as its own. Meese v. Keene, 481 U. S. 465, 480-481 (1987); see also Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U. S. 1, 10-11 (1990); Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977). The method for protecting freedom of worship and freedom of conscience in religious matters is quite the reverse. In religious debate or expression the government is not a prime participant, for the Framers deemed religious establishment antithetical to the freedom of all. The Free Exercise Clause embraces a freedom of conscience and worship that has close parallels in the speech provisions of the First Amendment, but the Establishment Clause is a specific prohibition on forms of state intervention in religious affairs with no precise counterpart in the speech provisions. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 92-93, and n. 127 (1976) (per curiam). The explanation lies in the lesson of history that was and is the inspiration for the Establishment Clause, the lesson that in [592] the hands of government what might begin as a tolerant expression of religious views may end in a policy to indoctrinate and coerce. A state-created orthodoxy puts at grave risk that freedom of belief and conscience which are the sole assurance that religious faith is real, not imposed.

The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the modern world as in the 18th century when it was written. One timeless lesson is that if citizens are subjected to statesponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a free people. To compromise that principle today would be to deny our own tradition and forfeit our standing to urge others to secure the protections of that tradition for themselves.

As we have observed before, there are heightened concerns with protecting freedom of conscience from subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools. See, e. g., School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 307 (1963) (Goldberg, J., concurring); Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 584 (1987); Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 261-262 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Our decisions in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), and School Dist. of Abington, supra, recognize, among other things, that prayer exercises in public schools carry a particular risk of indirect coercion. The concern may not be limited to the context of schools, but it is most pronounced there. See County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S., at 661 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy.

[593] We need not look beyond the circumstances of this case to see the phenomenon at work. The undeniable fact is that the school district's supervision and control of a high school graduation ceremony places public pressure, as well as peer pressure, on attending students to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence during the invocation and benediction. This pressure, though subtle and indirect, can be as real as any overt compulsion. Of course, in our culture standing or remaining silent can signify adherence to a view or simple respect for the views of others. And no doubt some persons who have no desire to join a prayer have little objection to standing as a sign of respect for those who do. But for the dissenter of high school age, who has a reasonable perception that she is being forced by the State to pray in a manner her conscience will not allow, the injury is no less real. There can be no doubt that for many, if not most, of the students at the graduation, the act of standing or remaining silent was an expression of participation in the rabbi's prayer. That was the very point of the religious exercise. It is of little comfort to a dissenter, then, to be told that for her the act of standing or remaining in silence signifies mere respect, rather than participation. What matters is that, given our social conventions, a reasonable dissenter in this milieu could believe that the group exercise signified her own participation or approval of it.

Finding no violation under these circumstances would place objectors in the dilemma of participating, with all that implies, or protesting. We do not address whether that choice is acceptable if the affected citizens are mature adults, but we think the State may not, consistent with the Establishment Clause, place primary and secondary school children in this position. Research in psychology supports the common assumption that adolescents are often susceptible to pressure from their peers towards conformity, and that the influence is strongest in matters of social convention. Brittain, Adolescent Choices and Parent-Peer Cross-Pressures, [594] 28 Am. Sociological Rev. 385 (June 1963); Clasen & Brown, The Multidimensionality of Peer Pressure in Adolescence, 14 J. of Youth and Adolescence 451 (Dec. 1985); Brown, Clasen, & Eicher, Perceptions of Peer Pressure, Peer Conformity Dispositions, and Self-Reported Behavior Among Adolescents, 22 Developmental Psychology 521 (July 1986). To recognize that the choice imposed by the State constitutes an unacceptable constraint only acknowledges that the government may no more use social pressure to enforce orthodoxy than it may use more direct means.

The injury caused by the government's action, and the reason why Daniel and Deborah Weisman object to it, is that the State, in a school setting, in effect required participation in a religious exercise. It is, we concede, a brief exercise during which the individual can concentrate on joining its message, meditate on her own religion, or let her mind wander. But the embarrassment and the intrusion of the religious exercise cannot be refuted by arguing that these prayers, and similar ones to be said in the future, are of a de minimis character. To do so would be an affront to the rabbi who offered them and to all those for whom the prayers were an essential and profound recognition of divine authority. And for the same reason, we think that the intrusion is greater than the two minutes or so of time consumed for prayers like these. Assuming, as we must, that the prayers were offensive to the student and the parent who now object, the intrusion was both real and, in the context of a secondary school, a violation of the objectors' rights. That the intrusion was in the course of promulgating religion that sought to be civic or nonsectarian rather than pertaining to one sect does not lessen the offense or isolation to the objectors. At best it narrows their number, at worst increases their sense of isolation and affront. See supra, at 593.

There was a stipulation in the District Court that attendance at graduation and promotional ceremonies is voluntary. Agreed Statement of Facts ¶ 41, App. 18. Petitioners and [595] the United States, as amicus, made this a center point of the case, arguing that the option of not attending the graduation excuses any inducement or coercion in the ceremony itself. The argument lacks all persuasion. Law reaches past formalism. And to say a teenage student has a real choice not to attend her high school graduation is formalistic in the extreme. True, Deborah could elect not to attend commencement without renouncing her diploma; but we shall not allow the case to turn on this point. Everyone knows that in our society and in our culture high school graduation is one of life's most significant occasions. A school rule which excuses attendance is beside the point. Attendance may not be required by official decree, yet it is apparent that a student is not free to absent herself from the graduation exercise in any real sense of the term "voluntary," for absence would require forfeiture of those intangible benefits which have motivated the student through youth and all her high school years. Graduation is a time for family and those closest to the student to celebrate success and express mutual wishes of gratitude and respect, all to the end of impressing upon the young person the role that it is his or her right and duty to assume in the community and all of its diverse parts.

The importance of the event is the point the school district and the United States rely upon to argue that a formal prayer ought to be permitted, but it becomes one of the principal reasons why their argument must fail. Their contention, one of considerable force were it not for the constitutional constraints applied to state action, is that the prayers are an essential part of these ceremonies because for many persons an occasion of this significance lacks meaning if there is no recognition, however brief, that human achievements cannot be understood apart from their spiritual essence. We think the Government's position that this interest suffices to force students to choose between compliance or forfeiture demonstrates fundamental inconsistency in its argumentation. It fails to acknowledge that what for many of [596] Deborah's classmates and their parents was a spiritual imperative was for Daniel and Deborah Weisman religious conformance compelled by the State. While in some societies the wishes of the majority might prevail, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is addressed to this contingency and rejects the balance urged upon us. The Constitution forbids the State to exact religious conformity from a student as the price of attending her own high school graduation. This is the calculus the Constitution commands.

The Government's argument gives insufficient recognition to the real conflict of conscience faced by the young student. The essence of the Government's position is that with regard to a civic, social occasion of this importance it is the objector, not the majority, who must take unilateral and private action to avoid compromising religious scruples, hereby electing to miss the graduation exercise. This turns conventional First Amendment analysis on its head. It is a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to state-sponsored religious practice. To say that a student must remain apart from the ceremony at the opening invocation and closing benediction is to risk compelling conformity in an environment analogous to the classroom setting, where we have said the risk of compulsion is especially high. See supra, at 593-594. Just as in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S., at 430, and School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S., at 224-225, where we found that provisions within the challenged legislation permitting a student to be voluntarily excused from attendance or participation in the daily prayers did not shield those practices from invalidation, the fact that attendance at the graduation ceremonies is voluntary in a legal sense does not save the religious exercise.

Inherent differences between the public school system and a session of a state legislature distinguish this case from Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983). The considerations [597] we have raised in objection to the invocation and benediction are in many respects similar to the arguments we considered in Marsh. But there are also obvious differences. The atmosphere at the opening of a session of a state legislature where adults are free to enter and leave with little comment and for any number of reasons cannot compare with the constraining potential of the one school event most important for the student to attend. The influence and force of a formal exercise in a school graduation are far greater than the prayer exercise we condoned in Marsh. The Marsh majority in fact gave specific recognition to this distinction and placed particular reliance on it in upholding the prayers at issue there. 463 U. S., at 792. Today's case is different. At a high school graduation, teachers and principals must and do retain a high degree of control over the precise contents of the program, the speeches, the timing, the movements, the dress, and the decorum of the students. Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675 (1986). In this atmosphere the state-imposed character of an invocation and benediction by clergy selected by the school combine to make the prayer a state-sanctioned religious exercise in which the student was left with no alternative but to submit. This is different from Marsh and suffices to make the religious exercise a First Amendment violation. Our Establishment Clause jurisprudence remains a delicate and fact-sensitive one, and we cannot accept the parallel relied upon by petitioners and the United States between the facts of Marsh and the case now before us. Our decisions in Engel v. Vitale, supra, and School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, supra, require us to distinguish the public school context.

We do not hold that every state action implicating religion is invalid if one or a few citizens find it offensive. People may take offense at all manner of religious as well as nonreligious messages, but offense alone does not in every case show a violation. We know too that sometimes to endure [598] social isolation or even anger may be the price of conscience or nonconformity. But, by any reading of our cases, the conformity required of the student in this case was too high an exaction to withstand the test of the Establishment Clause. The prayer exercises in this case are especially improper because the State has in every practical sense compelled attendance and participation in an explicit religious exercise at an event of singular importance to every student, one the objecting student had no real alternative to avoid.

Our jurisprudence in this area is of necessity one of linedrawing, of determining at what point a dissenter's rights of religious freedom are infringed by the State.

"The First Amendment does not prohibit practices which by any realistic measure create none of the dangers which it is designed to prevent and which do not so directly or substantially involve the state in religious exercises or in the favoring of religion as to have meaningful and practical impact. It is of course true that great consequences can grow from small beginnings, but the measure of constitutional adjudication is the ability and willingness to distinguish between real threat and mere shadow." School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, supra, at 308 (Goldberg, J., concurring).

Our society would be less than true to its heritage if it lacked abiding concern for the values of its young people, and we acknowledge the profound belief of adherents to many faiths that there must be a place in the student's life for precepts of a morality higher even than the law we today enforce. We express no hostility to those aspirations, nor would our oath permit us to do so. A relentless and allpervasive attempt to exclude religion from every aspect of public life could itself become inconsistent with the Constitution. See School Dist. of Abington, supra, at 306 (Goldberg, J., concurring). We recognize that, at graduation time and throughout the course of the educational process, there will [599] be instances when religious values, religious practices, and religious persons will have some interaction with the public schools and their students. See Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226 (1990). But these matters, often questions of accommodation of religion, are not before us. The sole question presented is whether a religious exercise may be conducted at a graduation ceremony in circumstances where, as we have found, young graduates who object are induced to conform. No holding by this Court suggests that a school can persuade or compel a student to participate in a religious exercise. That is being done here, and it is forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

For the reasons we have stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Justice Blackmun, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice O'Connor join, concurring.

Nearly half a century of review and refinement of Establishment Clause jurisprudence has distilled one clear understanding: Government may neither promote nor affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization, nor may it obtrude itself in the internal affairs of any religious institution. The application of these principles to the present case mandates the decision reached today by the Court.

I

This Court first reviewed a challenge to state law under the Establishment Clause in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947).^[2] Relying on the history of the [600] Clause, and the Court's prior analysis, Justice Black outlined the considerations that have become the touchstone of Establishment Clause jurisprudence: Neither a State nor the Federal Government can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither a State nor the Federal Government, openly or secretly, can participate in the affairs of any religious organization and vice versa.^[3] "In the words of Jefferson, the clause [601] against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect `a wall of separation between church and State.' " Everson, 330 U. S., at 16 (quoting Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1879)). The dissenters agreed: "The Amendment's purpose . . . was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion." 330 U. S., at 31-32 (Rutledge, J., dissenting, joined by Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton, JJ.).

In Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), the Court considered for the first time the constitutionality of prayer in a public school. Students said aloud a short prayer selected by the State Board of Regents: "`Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.' " Id., at 422. Justice Black, writing for the Court, again made clear that the First Amendment forbids the use of the power or prestige of the government to control, support, or influence the religious beliefs and practices of the American people. Although the prayer was "denominationally neutral" and "its observance on the part of the students [was] voluntary," id., at 430, the Court found that it violated this essential precept of the Establishment Clause.

A year later, the Court again invalidated governmentsponsored prayer in public schools in School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963). In Schempp, the school day for Baltimore, Maryland, and Abington Township, Pennsylvania, students began with a reading from the Bible, or a recitation of the Lord's Prayer, or both. After a thorough review of the Court's prior Establishment Clause cases, the Court concluded:

[602] "[T]he Establishment Clause has been directly considered by this Court eight times in the past score of years and, with only one Justice dissenting on the point, it has consistently held that the clause withdrew all legislative power respecting religious belief or the expression thereof. The test may be stated as follows: what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion, then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution." Id., at 222.

Because the schools' opening exercises were governmentsponsored religious ceremonies, the Court found that the primary effect was the advancement of religion and held, therefore, that the activity violated the Establishment Clause. Id., at 223-224.

Five years later, the next time the Court considered whether religious activity in public schools violated the Establishment Clause, it reiterated the principle that government "may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite." Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968). "`If [the purpose or primary effect] is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution.' " Id., at 107 (quoting Schempp, 374 U. S., at 222). Finding that the Arkansas law aided religion by preventing the teaching of evolution, the Court invalidated it.

In 1971, Chief Justice Burger reviewed the Court's past decisions and found: "Three . . . tests may be gleaned from our cases." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612. In order for a statute to survive an Establishment Clause challenge, "[f]irst, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally the statute must not foster an excessive government entanglement with [603] religion." Id., at 612-613 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).^[4] After Lemon, the Court continued to rely on these basic principles in resolving Establishment Clause disputes.^[5]

Application of these principles to the facts of this case is straightforward. There can be "no doubt" that the "invocation of God's blessings" delivered at Nathan Bishop Middle School "is a religious activity." Engel, 370 U. S., at 424. In the words of Engel, the rabbi's prayer "is a solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessings of the Almighty. The nature of such a prayer has always been religious." Id., at 424-425. The question then is whether the government has "plac[ed] its official stamp of approval" on the prayer. Id., at 429. As the Court ably demonstrates, when the government "compose[s] official prayers," id. , at 425, selects the member of the clergy to deliver the prayer, has the prayer delivered at a public school event that is planned, supervised, and given by school officials, and pressures [604] students to attend and participate in the prayer, there can be no doubt that the government is advancing and promoting religion.^[6] As our prior decisions teach us, it is this that the Constitution prohibits.

II

I join the Court's opinion today because I find nothing in it inconsistent with the essential precepts of the Establishment Clause developed in our precedents. The Court holds that the graduation prayer is unconstitutional because the State "in effect required participation in a religious exercise." Ante, at 594. Although our precedents make clear that proof of government coercion is not necessary to prove an Establishment Clause violation, it is sufficient. Government pressure to participate in a religious activity is an obvious indication that the government is endorsing or promoting religion.

But it is not enough that the government restrain from compelling religious practices: It must not engage in them either. See Schempp, 374 U. S., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring). The Court repeatedly has recognized that a violation of the Establishment Clause is not predicated on coercion. See, e. g., id., at 223; id. , at 229 (Douglas, J., concurring); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 72 (1985) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) ("The decisions [in Engel and Schempp ] acknowledged the coercion implicit under the statutory schemes, but they expressly turned only on the fact that the government was sponsoring a manifestly religious exercise" (citation omitted)); Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 786 (1973) ("[P]roof of coercion . . . [is] not a necessary element of any claim under the Establishment Clause"). The Establishment Clause proscribes public schools from "conveying or attempting to convey [605] a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred, " County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 593 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original), even if the schools do not actually "impos[e] pressure upon a student to participate in a religious activity."^[7]Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 261 (1990) (Kennedy, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).

The scope of the Establishment Clause's prohibitions developed in our case law derives from the Clause's purposes. The First Amendment encompasses two distinct guarantees—the government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof—both with the common purpose of securing religious liberty.^[8] Through vigorous enforcement of both Clauses, we "promote and assure the fullest possible scope of religious liberty and tolerance for all and . . . nurture the conditions which secure the best hope of attainment of that end." Schempp, 374 U. S., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring).

There is no doubt that attempts to aid religion through government coercion jeopardize freedom of conscience. Even subtle pressure diminishes the right of each individual to choose voluntarily what to believe. Representative Carroll explained during congressional debate over the Establishment [606] Clause: "[T]he rights of conscience are, in their nature, of peculiar delicacy, and will little bear the gentlest touch of governmental hand." 1 Annals of Cong. 757 (1789).

Our decisions have gone beyond prohibiting coercion, however, because the Court has recognized that "the fullest possible scope of religious liberty," Schempp, 374 U. S., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring), entails more than freedom from coercion. The Establishment Clause protects religious liberty on a grand scale; it is a social compact that guarantees for generations a democracy and a strong religious community—both essential to safeguarding religious liberty. "Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions entirely separate." Religious Liberty, in Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black 53 (C. Black ed. 1885) (Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania).^[9]

The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate. When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs.^[10] A government cannot [607] be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some. Only "[a]nguish, hardship and bitter strife" result "when zealous religious groups struggl[e] with one another to obtain the Government's stamp of approval." Engel, 370 U. S., at 429; see also Lemon, 403 U. S., at 622-623; Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402, 416 (1985) (Powell, J., concurring).^[11] Such a struggle can "strain a political system to the breaking point." Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 694 (1970) (opinion of Harlan, J.).

When the government arrogates to itself a role in religious affairs, it abandons its obligation as guarantor of democracy. Democracy requires the nourishment of dialog and dissent, while religious faith puts its trust in an ultimate divine authority above all human deliberation. When the government appropriates religious truth, it "transforms rational debate into theological decree." Nuechterlein, Note, The Free Exercise Boundaries of Permissible Accommodation Under the Establishment Clause, 99 Yale L. J. 1127, 1131 (1990). Those who disagree no longer are questioning the policy judgment of the elected but the rules of a higher authority who is beyond reproach.

[608] Madison warned that government officials who would use religious authority to pursue secular ends "exceed the commission from which they derive their authority and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves, nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves." Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments (1785), in The Complete Madison 300 (S. Padover ed. 1953). Democratic government will not last long when proclamation replaces persuasion as the medium of political exchange.

Likewise, we have recognized that "[r]eligion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov[ernment]."^[12]Id., at 309. To "make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary," Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306, 313 (1952), the government must not align itself with any one of them. When the government favors a particular religion or sect, the disadvantage to all others is obvious, but even the favored religion may fear being "taint[ed] . . . with a corrosive secularism." School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 385 (1985). The favored religion may be compromised as political figures reshape the religion's beliefs for their own purposes; it may be reformed as government largesse brings government regulation.^[13] Keeping religion in the hands of private groups minimizes state intrusion on religious choice and best enables each religion to "flourish according to the [609] zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma." Zorach, 343 U. S., at 313.

It is these understandings and fears that underlie our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. We have believed that religious freedom cannot exist in the absence of a free democratic government, and that such a government cannot endure when there is fusion between religion and the political regime. We have believed that religious freedom cannot thrive in the absence of a vibrant religious community and that such a community cannot prosper when it is bound to the secular. And we have believed that these were the animating principles behind the adoption of the Establishment Clause. To that end, our cases have prohibited government endorsement of religion, its sponsorship, and active involvement in religion, whether or not citizens were coerced to conform.

I remain convinced that our jurisprudence is not misguided, and that it requires the decision reached by the Court today. Accordingly, I join the Court in affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens and Justice O'Connor join, concurring.

I join the whole of the Court's opinion, and fully agree that prayers at public school graduation ceremonies indirectly coerce religious observance. I write separately nonetheless on two issues of Establishment Clause analysis that underlie my independent resolution of this case: whether the Clause applies to governmental practices that do not favor one religion or denomination over others, and whether state coercion of religious conformity, over and above state endorsement of religious exercise or belief, is a necessary element of an Establishment Clause violation.

I

Forty-five years ago, this Court announced a basic principle of constitutional law from which it has not strayed: the [610] Establishment Clause forbids not only state practices that "aid one religion . . . or prefer one religion over another," but also those that "aid all religions." Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 15 (1947). Today we reaffirm that principle, holding that the Establishment Clause forbids state-sponsored prayers in public school settings no matter how nondenominational the prayers may be. In barring the State from sponsoring generically theistic prayers where it could not sponsor sectarian ones, we hold true to a line of precedent from which there is no adequate historical case to depart.

A

Since Everson, we have consistently held the Clause applicable no less to governmental acts favoring religion generally than to acts favoring one religion over others.^[14] Thus, in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), we held that the public schools may not subject their students to readings of any prayer, however "denominationally neutral." Id., at 430. More recently, in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985), we held that an Alabama moment-of-silence statute passed for the sole purpose of "returning voluntary prayer to public schools," id., at 57, violated the Establishment Clause even though it did not encourage students to pray to any particular deity. We said that "when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all." Id., at 52-53. This conclusion, we held,

"derives support not only from the interest in respecting the individual's freedom of conscience, but also from the conviction that religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of free and voluntary choice by the faithful, [611] and from recognition of the fact that the political interest in forestalling intolerance extends beyond intolerance among Christian sects—or even intolerance among `religions'—to encompass intolerance of the disbeliever and the uncertain." Id., at 53-54 (footnotes omitted).

Likewise, in Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S. 1 (1989), we struck down a state tax exemption benefiting only religious periodicals; even though the statute in question worked no discrimination among sects, a majority of the Court found that its preference for religious publications over all other kinds "effectively endorses religious belief." Id., at 17 (plurality opinion); see id., at 28 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment) ("A statutory preference for the dissemination of religious ideas offends our most basic understanding of what the Establishment Clause is all about and hence is constitutionally intolerable"). And in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961), we struck down a provision of the Maryland Constitution requiring public officials to declare a "`belief in the existence of God,' " id., at 489, reasoning that, under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, "neither a State nor the Federal Government . . . can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers . . . ," id., at 495. See also Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 104 (1968) ("The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion"); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 216 (1963) ("this Court has rejected unequivocally the contention that the Establishment Clause forbids only governmental preference of one religion over another"); id., at 319— 320 (Stewart, J., dissenting) (the Clause applies "to each of us, be he Jew or Agnostic, Christian or Atheist, Buddhist or Freethinker").

Such is the settled law. Here, as elsewhere, we should stick to it absent some compelling reason to discard it. See [612] Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984); Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 842 (1991) (Souter, J., concurring).

B

Some have challenged this precedent by reading the Establishment Clause to permit "nonpreferential" state promotion of religion. The challengers argue that, as originally understood by the Framers, "[t]he Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion nor did it prohibit the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion." Wallace, supra, at 106 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); see also R. Cord, Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction (1988). While a case has been made for this position, it is not so convincing as to warrant reconsideration of our settled law; indeed, I find in the history of the Clause's textual development a more powerful argument supporting the Court's jurisprudence following Everson.

When James Madison arrived at the First Congress with a series of proposals to amend the National Constitution, one of the provisions read that "[t]he civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed." 1 Annals of Cong. 434 (1789). Madison's language did not last long. It was sent to a Select Committee of the House, which, without explanation, changed it to read that "no religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed." Id., at 729. Thence the proposal went to the Committee of the Whole, which was in turn dissatisfied with the Select Committee's language and adopted an alternative proposed by Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire: "Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience." See id., at 731. Livermore's proposal would have forbidden laws having anything to do with religion and was thus not [613] only far broader than Madison's version, but broader even than the scope of the Establishment Clause as we now understand it. See, e. g., Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327 (1987) (upholding legislative exemption of religious groups from certain obligations under civil rights laws).

The House rewrote the amendment once more before sending it to the Senate, this time adopting, without recorded debate, language derived from a proposal by Fisher Ames of Massachusetts: "Congress shall make no law establishing Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of conscience be infringed." 1 Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America 136 (Senate Journal) (L. de Pauw ed. 1972); see 1 Annals of Cong. 765 (1789). Perhaps, on further reflection, the Representatives had thought Livermore's proposal too expansive, or perhaps, as one historian has suggested, they had simply worried that his language would not "satisfy the demands of those who wanted something said specifically against establishments of religion." L. Levy, The Establishment Clause 81 (1986) (hereinafter Levy). We do not know; what we do know is that the House rejected the Select Committee's version, which arguably ensured only that "no religion" enjoyed an official preference over others, and deliberately chose instead a prohibition extending to laws establishing "religion" in general.

The sequence of the Senate's treatment of this House proposal, and the House's response to the Senate, confirm that the Framers meant the Establishment Clause's prohibition to encompass nonpreferential aid to religion. In September 1789, the Senate considered a number of provisions that would have permitted such aid, and ultimately it adopted one of them. First, it briefly entertained this language: "Congress shall make no law establishing One Religious Sect or Society in preference to others, nor shall the rights of conscience be infringed." See 1 Documentary History, at 151 [614] (Senate Journal); id., at 136. After rejecting two minor amendments to that proposal, see id., at 151, the Senate dropped it altogether and chose a provision identical to the House's proposal, but without the clause protecting the "rights of conscience," ibid. With no record of the Senate debates, we cannot know what prompted these changes, but the record does tell us that, six days later, the Senate went half circle and adopted its narrowest language yet: "Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion." Id., at 166. The Senate sent this proposal to the House along with its versions of the other constitutional amendments proposed.

Though it accepted much of the Senate's work on the Bill of Rights, the House rejected the Senate's version of the Establishment Clause and called for a joint conference committee, to which the Senate agreed. The House conferees ultimately won out, persuading the Senate to accept this as the final text of the Religion Clauses: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." What is remarkable is that, unlike the earliest House drafts or the final Senate proposal, the prevailing language is not limited to laws respecting an establishment of "a religion," "a national religion," "one religious sect," or specific "articles of faith."^[15] The Framers repeatedly [615] considered and deliberately rejected such narrow language and instead extended their prohibition to state support for "religion" in general.

Implicit in their choice is the distinction between preferential and nonpreferential establishments, which the weight of evidence suggests the Framers appreciated. See, e. g., Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid 902-906; Levy 91-119. But cf. T. Curry, The First Freedoms 208-222 (1986). Of particular note, the Framers were vividly familiar with efforts in the Colonies and, later, the States to impose general, nondenominational assessments and other incidents of ostensibly ecumenical establishments. See generally Levy 1-62. The Virginia statute for religious freedom, written by Jefferson and sponsored by Madison, captured the separationist response to such measures. Condemning all establishments, however nonpreferentialist, the statute broadly guaranteed that "no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever," including his own. Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1785), in 5 The Founders' Constitution 84, 85 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). Forcing a citizen to support even his own church would, among other things, deny "the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind." Id., at 84. In general, Madison later added, "religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." Letter from J. Madison to E. Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 105, 106.

What we thus know of the Framers' experience underscores the observation of one prominent commentator, that confining the Establishment Clause to a prohibition on preferential aid "requires a premise that the Framers were extraordinarily bad drafters—that they believed one thing but adopted language that said something substantially different, and that they did so after repeatedly attending to the [616] choice of language." Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid 882— 883; see also County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 647— 648 (1989) (opinion of Stevens, J.). We must presume, since there is no conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the Framers embraced the significance of their textual judgment.^[16] Thus, on balance, history neither contradicts nor warrants reconsideration of the settled principle that the Establishment Clause forbids support for religion in general no less than support for one religion or some.

C

While these considerations are, for me, sufficient to reject the nonpreferentialist position, one further concern animates my judgment. In many contexts, including this one, nonpreferentialism requires some distinction between "sectarian" religious practices and those that would be, by some measure, ecumenical enough to pass Establishment Clause muster. Simply by requiring the enquiry, nonpreferentialists invite the courts to engage in comparative theology. I can hardly imagine a subject less amenable to the competence [617] of the federal judiciary, or more deliberately to be avoided where possible.

This case is nicely in point. Since the nonpreferentiality of a prayer must be judged by its text, Justice Blackmun pertinently observes, ante, at 604, n. 5, that Rabbi Gutterman drew his exhortation "`[t]o do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly' " straight from the King James version of Micah, ch. 6, v. 8. At some undefinable point, the similarities between a state-sponsored prayer and the sacred text of a specific religion would so closely identify the former with the latter that even a nonpreferentialist would have to concede a breach of the Establishment Clause. And even if Micah's thought is sufficiently generic for most believers, it still embodies a straightforwardly theistic premise, and so does the rabbi's prayer. Many Americans who consider themselves religious are not theistic; some, like several of the Framers, are deists who would question Rabbi Gutterman's plea for divine advancement of the country's political and moral good. Thus, a nonpreferentialist who would condemn subjecting public school graduates to, say, the Anglican liturgy would still need to explain why the government's preference for theistic over nontheistic religion is constitutional.

Nor does it solve the problem to say that the State should promote a "diversity" of religious views; that position would necessarily compel the government and, inevitably, the courts to make wholly inappropriate judgments about the number of religions the State should sponsor and the relative frequency with which it should sponsor each. In fact, the prospect would be even worse than that. As Madison observed in criticizing religious Presidential proclamations, the practice of sponsoring religious messages tends, over time, "to narrow the recommendation to the standard of the predominant sect." Madison's "Detached Memoranda," 3 Wm. & Mary Q. 534, 561 (E. Fleet ed. 1946) (hereinafter Madison's "Detached Memoranda"). We have not changed much since the days of Madison, and the judiciary should not [618] willingly enter the political arena to battle the centripetal force leading from religious pluralism to official preference for the faith with the most votes.

II

Petitioners rest most of their argument on a theory that, whether or not the Establishment Clause permits extensive nonsectarian support for religion, it does not forbid the state to sponsor affirmations of religious belief that coerce neither support for religion nor participation in religious observance. I appreciate the force of some of the arguments supporting a "coercion" analysis of the Clause. See generally County of Allegheny, supra, at 655-679 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); McConnell, Coercion: The Lost Element of Establishment, 27 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 933 (1986). But we could not adopt that reading without abandoning our settled law, a course that, in my view, the text of the Clause would not readily permit. Nor does the extra textual evidence of original meaning stand so unequivocally at odds with the textual premise inherent in existing precedent that we should fundamentally reconsider our course.

A

Over the years, this Court has declared the invalidity of many noncoercive state laws and practices conveying a message of religious endorsement. For example, in County of Allegheny, supra, we forbade the prominent display of a nativity scene on public property; without contesting the dissent's observation that the crèche coerced no one into accepting or supporting whatever message it proclaimed, five Members of the Court found its display unconstitutional as a state endorsement of Christianity. Id., at 589-594, 598-602. Likewise, in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985), we struck down a state law requiring a moment of silence in public classrooms not because the statute coerced students to participate in prayer (for it did not), but because the manner of [619] its enactment "convey[ed] a message of state approval of prayer activities in the public schools." Id., at 61; see also id., at 67-84 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). Cf. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S., at 431 ("When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause go much further than that").

In Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97 (1968), we invalidated a state law that barred the teaching of Darwin's theory of evolution because, even though the statute obviously did not coerce anyone to support religion or participate in any religious practice, it was enacted for a singularly religious purpose. See also Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 593 (1987) (statute requiring instruction in "creation science" "endorses religion in violation of the First Amendment"). And in School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373 (1985), we invalidated a program whereby the State sent public school teachers to parochial schools to instruct students on ostensibly nonreligious matters; while the scheme clearly did not coerce anyone to receive or subsidize religious instruction, we held it invalid because, among other things, "[t]he symbolic union of church and state inherent in the [program] threatens to convey a message of state support for religion to students and to the general public." Id., at 397; see also Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S., at 17 (plurality opinion) (tax exemption benefiting only religious publications "effectively endorses religious belief"); id., at 28 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment) (exemption unconstitutional because State "engaged in preferential support for the communication of religious messages").

Our precedents may not always have drawn perfectly straight lines. They simply cannot, however, support the position that a showing of coercion is necessary to a successful Establishment Clause claim.

[620] B

Like the provisions about "due" process and "unreasonable" searches and seizures, the constitutional language forbidding laws "respecting an establishment of religion" is not pellucid. But virtually everyone acknowledges that the Clause bans more than formal establishments of religion in the traditional sense, that is, massive state support for religion through, among other means, comprehensive schemes of taxation. See generally Levy 1-62 (discussing such establishments in the Colonies and early States). This much follows from the Framers' explicit rejection of simpler provisions prohibiting either the establishment of a religion or laws "establishing religion" in favor of the broader ban on laws "respecting an establishment of religion." See supra, at 612-614.

While some argue that the Framers added the word "respecting" simply to foreclose federal interference with state establishments of religion, see, e. g., Amar, The Bill of Rights as a Constitution, 100 Yale L. J. 1131, 1157 (1991), the language sweeps more broadly than that. In Madison's words, the Clause in its final form forbids "everything like" a national religious establishment, see Madison's "Detached Memoranda" 558, and, after incorporation, it forbids "everything like" a state religious establishment.^[17] Cf. County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 649 (opinion of Stevens, J.). The sweep is broad enough that Madison himself characterized congressional provisions for legislative and military chaplains as unconstitutional "establishments." Madison's "Detached Memoranda" 558-559; see infra, at 624-625, and n. 6.

[621] While petitioners insist that the prohibition extends only to the "coercive" features and incidents of establishment, they cannot easily square that claim with the constitutional text. The First Amendment forbids not just laws "respecting an establishment of religion," but also those "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Yet laws that coerce nonadherents to "support or participate in any religion or its exercise," County of Allegheny, supra, at 659-660 (opinion of Kennedy, J.), would virtually by definition violate their right to religious free exercise. See Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 877 (1990) (under Free Exercise Clause, "government may not compel affirmation of religious belief"), citing Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 (1961); see also J. Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) (compelling support for religious establishments violates "free exercise of Religion"), quoted in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 82, 84. Thus, a literal application of the coercion test would render the Establishment Clause a virtual nullity, as petitioners' counsel essentially conceded at oral argument. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18.

Our cases presuppose as much; as we said in School Dist. of Abington, "[t]he distinction between the two clauses is apparent—a violation of the Free Exercise Clause is predicated on coercion while the Establishment Clause violation need not be so attended." 374 U. S., at 223; see also Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid 922 ("If coercion is . . . an element of the establishment clause, establishment adds nothing to free exercise"). While one may argue that the Framers meant the Establishment Clause simply to ornament the First Amendment, cf. T. Curry, The First Freedoms 216-217 (1986), that must be a reading of last resort. Without compelling evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the Framers meant the Clause to stand for something more than petitioners attribute to it.

[622] C

Petitioners argue from the political setting in which the Establishment Clause was framed, and from the Framers' own political practices following ratification, that government may constitutionally endorse religion so long as it does not coerce religious conformity. The setting and the practices warrant canvassing, but while they yield some evidence for petitioners' argument, they do not reveal the degree of consensus in early constitutional thought that would raise a threat to stare decisis by challenging the presumption that the Establishment Clause adds something to the Free Exercise Clause that follows it.

The Framers adopted the Religion Clauses in response to a long tradition of coercive state support for religion, particularly in the form of tax assessments, but their special antipathy to religious coercion did not exhaust their hostility to the features and incidents of establishment. Indeed, Jefferson and Madison opposed any political appropriation of religion, see infra, at 623-626, and, even when challenging the hated assessments, they did not always temper their rhetoric with distinctions between coercive and noncoercive state action. When, for example, Madison criticized Virginia's general assessment bill, he invoked principles antithetical to all state efforts to promote religion. An assessment, he wrote, is improper not simply because it forces people to donate "three pence" to religion, but, more broadly, because "it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority." J. Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 83. Madison saw that, even without the tax collector's participation, an official endorsement of religion can impair religious liberty.

Petitioners contend that because the early Presidents included religious messages in their inaugural and Thanksgiving Day addresses, the Framers could not have meant the [623] Establishment Clause to forbid noncoercive state endorsement of religion. The argument ignores the fact, however, that Americans today find such proclamations less controversial than did the founding generation, whose published thoughts on the matter belie petitioners' claim. President Jefferson, for example, steadfastly refused to issue Thanksgiving proclamations of any kind, in part because he thought they violated the Religion Clauses. Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rev. S. Miller (Jan. 23, 1808), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 98. In explaining his views to the Reverend Samuel Miller, Jefferson effectively anticipated, and rejected, petitioners' position:

"[I]t is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U. S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded from them. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion." Id., at 98-99 (emphasis in original).

By condemning such noncoercive state practices that, in "recommending" the majority faith, demean religious dissenters "in public opinion," Jefferson necessarily condemned what, in modern terms, we call official endorsement of religion. He accordingly construed the Establishment Clause to forbid not simply state coercion, but also state endorsement, of religious belief and observance.^[18] And if he opposed [624] impersonal Presidential addresses for inflicting "proscription in public opinion," all the more would he have condemned less diffuse expressions of official endorsement.

During his first three years in office, James Madison also refused to call for days of thanksgiving and prayer, though later, amid the political turmoil of the War of 1812, he did so on four separate occasions. See Madison's "Detached Memoranda" 562, and n. 54. Upon retirement, in an essay condemning as an unconstitutional "establishment" the use of public money to support congressional and military chaplains, id., at 558-560,^[19] he concluded that "[r]eligious proclamations [625] by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed. Altho' recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers." Id., at 560. Explaining that "[t]he members of a Govt . . . canin no sense, be regarded as possessing an advisory trust from their Constituents in their religious capacities," ibid., he further observed that the state necessarily freights all of its religious messages with political ones: "the idea of policy [is] associated with religion, whatever be the mode or the occasion, when a function of the latter is assumed by those in power." Id., at 562 (footnote omitted).

Madison's failure to keep pace with his principles in the face of congressional pressure cannot erase the principles. He admitted to backsliding, and explained that he had made the content of his wartime proclamations inconsequential enough to mitigate much of their impropriety. See ibid.; see also Letter from J. Madison to E. Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 105. While his writings suggest mild variations in his interpretation of the Establishment Clause, Madison was no different in that respect from the rest of his political generation. That he expressed so much doubt about the constitutionality of religious proclamations, however, suggests a brand of separationism stronger even than that embodied in our traditional jurisprudence. So too does his characterization of public subsidies for legislative and military chaplains as unconstitutional "establishments," see supra, at 624 and this page, and n. 6, for the federal courts, however expansive their general view of the Establishment Clause, have upheld both practices. See Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983) (legislative chaplains); [626] Katcoff v. Marsh, 755 F. 2d 223 (CA2 1985) (military chaplains).

To be sure, the leaders of the young Republic engaged in some of the practices that separationists like Jefferson and Madison criticized. The First Congress did hire institutional chaplains, see Marsh v. Chambers, supra, at 788, and Presidents Washington and Adams unapologetically marked days of "`public thanksgiving and prayer,'" see R. Cord, Separation of Church and State 53 (1988). Yet in the face of the separationist dissent, those practices prove, at best, that the Framers simply did not share a common understanding of the Establishment Clause, and, at worst, that they, like other politicians, could raise constitutional ideals one day and turn their backs on them the next. "Indeed, by 1787 the provisions of the state bills of rights had become what Madison called mere `paper parchments'—expressions of the most laudable sentiments, observed as much in the breach as in practice." Kurland, The Origins of the Religion Clauses of the Constitution, 27 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 839, 852 (1986) (footnote omitted). Sometimes the National Constitution fared no better. Ten years after proposing the First Amendment, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, measures patently unconstitutional by modern standards. If the early Congress's political actions were determinative, and not merely relevant, evidence of constitutional meaning, we would have to gut our current First Amendment doctrine to make room for political censorship.

While we may be unable to know for certain what the Framers meant by the Clause, we do know that, around the time of its ratification, a respectable body of opinion supported a considerably broader reading than petitioners urge upon us. This consistency with the textual considerations is enough to preclude fundamentally reexamining our settled law, and I am accordingly left with the task of considering whether the state practice at issue here violates our traditional understanding of the Clause's proscriptions.

[627] III

While the Establishment Clause's concept of neutrality is not self-revealing, our recent cases have invested it with specific content: the State may not favor or endorse either religion generally over nonreligion or one religion over others. See, e. g., County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 589-594, 598-602; Texas Monthly, 489 U. S., at 17 (plurality opinion); id., at 28 (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment); Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S., at 593; School Dist. of Grand Rapids, 473 U. S., at 389-392; Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 61; see also Laycock, Formal, Substantive, and Disaggregated Neutrality Toward Religion, 39 DePaul L. Rev. 993 (1990); cf. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971). This principle against favoritism and endorsement has become the foundation of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, ensuring that religious belief is irrelevant to every citizen's standing in the political community, see County of Allegheny, supra, at 594; J. Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 82-83, and protecting religion from the demeaning effects of any governmental embrace, see id., at 83. Now, as in the early Republic, "religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." Letter from J. Madison to E. Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 106. Our aspiration to religious liberty, embodied in the First Amendment, permits no other standard.

A

That government must remain neutral in matters of religion does not foreclose it from ever taking religion into account. The State may "accommodate" the free exercise of religion by relieving people from generally applicable rules that interfere with their religious callings. See, e. g., Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327 (1987); see also Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963). Contrary to the [628] views of some,^[1] such accommodation does not necessarily signify an official endorsement of religious observance over disbelief.

In everyday life, we routinely accommodate religious beliefs that we do not share. A Christian inviting an Orthodox Jew to lunch might take pains to choose a kosher restaurant; an atheist in a hurry might yield the right of way to an Amish man steering a horse-drawn carriage. In so acting, we express respect for, but not endorsement of, the fundamental values of others. We act without expressing a position on the theological merit of those values or of religious belief in general, and no one perceives us to have taken such a position.

The government may act likewise. Most religions encourage devotional practices that are at once crucial to the lives of believers and idiosyncratic in the eyes of nonadherents. By definition, secular rules of general application are drawn from the nonadherent's vantage and, consequently, fail to take such practices into account. Yet when enforcement of such rules cuts across religious sensibilities, as it often does, it puts those affected to the choice of taking sides between God and government. In such circumstances, accommodating religion reveals nothing beyond a recognition that general rules can unnecessarily offend the religious conscience when they offend the conscience of secular society not at all. Cf. Welsh v. United States, 398 U. S. 333, 340 (1970) (plurality opinion). Thus, in freeing the Native American Church from federal laws forbidding peyote use, see Drug Enforcement Administration Miscellaneous Exemptions, 21 CFR [629] § 1307.31 (1991), the government conveys no endorsement of peyote rituals, the Church, or religion as such; it simply respects the centrality of peyote to the lives of certain Americans. See Note, The Free Exercise Boundaries of Permissible Accommodation Under the Establishment Clause, 99 Yale L. J. 1127, 1135-1136 (1990).

B

Whatever else may define the scope of accommodation permissible under the Establishment Clause, one requirement is clear: accommodation must lift a discernible burden on the free exercise of religion. See County of Allegheny, supra, at 601, n. 51; id., at 631-632 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Corporation of Presiding Bishop, supra, at 348 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also Texas Monthly, supra, at 18, 18-19, n. 8 (plurality opinion); Wallace v. Jaffree, supra, at 57-58, n. 45. But see County of Allegheny, supra, at 663, n. 2 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). Concern for the position of religious individuals in the modern regulatory State cannot justify official solicitude for a religious practice unburdened by general rules; such gratuitous largesse would effectively favor religion over disbelief. By these lights one easily sees that, in sponsoring the graduation prayers at issue here, the State has crossed the line from permissible accommodation to unconstitutional establishment.

Religious students cannot complain that omitting prayers from their graduation ceremony would, in any realistic sense, "burden" their spiritual callings. To be sure, many of them invest this rite of passage with spiritual significance, but they may express their religious feelings about it before and after the ceremony. They may even organize a privately sponsored baccalaureate if they desire the company of likeminded students. Because they accordingly have no need for the machinery of the State to affirm their beliefs, the [630] government's sponsorship of prayer at the graduation ceremony is most reasonably understood as an official endorsement of religion and, in this instance, of theistic religion. One may fairly say, as one commentator has suggested, that the government brought prayer into the ceremony "precisely because some people want a symbolic affirmation that government approves and endorses their religion, and because many of the people who want this affirmation place little or no value on the costs to religious minorities." Laycock, Summary and Synthesis: The Crisis in Religious Liberty, 60 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 841, 844 (1992).^[2]

Petitioners would deflect this conclusion by arguing that graduation prayers are no different from Presidential religious proclamations and similar official "acknowledgments" of religion in public life. But religious invocations in Thanksgiving Day addresses and the like, rarely noticed, ignored without effort, conveyed over an impersonal medium, and directed at no one in particular, inhabit a pallid zone worlds apart from official prayers delivered to a captive audience of public school students and their families. Madison himself respected the difference between the trivial and the serious in constitutional practice. Realizing that his contemporaries [631] were unlikely to take the Establishment Clause seriously enough to forgo a legislative chaplainship, he suggested that "[r]ather than let this step beyond the landmarks of power have the effect of a legitimate precedent, it will be better to apply to it the legal aphorism de minimis non curat lex . . . ." Madison's "Detached Memoranda" 559; see also Letter from J. Madison to E. Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 105. But that logic permits no winking at the practice in question here. When public school officials, armed with the State's authority, convey an endorsement of religion to their students, they strike near the core of the Establishment Clause. However "ceremonial" their messages may be, they are flatly unconstitutional.

Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice White, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.

Three Terms ago, I joined an opinion recognizing that the Establishment Clause must be construed in light of the "[g]overnment policies of accommodation, acknowledgment, and support for religion [that] are an accepted part of our political and cultural heritage." That opinion affirmed that "the meaning of the Clause is to be determined by reference to historical practices and understandings." It said that "[a] test for implementing the protections of the Establishment Clause that, if applied with consistency, would invalidate longstanding traditions cannot be a proper reading of the Clause." County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 657, 670 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part).

These views of course prevent me from joining today's opinion, which is conspicuously bereft of any reference to history. In holding that the Establishment Clause prohibits invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies, the Court—with nary a mention that it is doing [632] so—lays waste a tradition that is as old as public school graduation ceremonies themselves, and that is a component of an even more longstanding American tradition of nonsectarian prayer to God at public celebrations generally. As its instrument of destruction, the bulldozer of its social engineering, the Court invents a boundless, and boundlessly manipulable, test of psychological coercion, which promises to do for the Establishment Clause what the Durham rule did for the insanity defense. See Durham v. United States, 94 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 214 F. 2d 862 (1954). Today's opinion shows more forcefully than volumes of argumentation why our Nation's protection, that fortress which is our Constitution, cannot possibly rest upon the changeable philosophical predilections of the Justices of this Court, but must have deep foundations in the historic practices of our people.

I

Justice Holmes' aphorism that "a page of history is worth a volume of logic," New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U. S. 345, 349 (1921), applies with particular force to our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. As we have recognized, our interpretation of the Establishment Clause should "compor[t] with what history reveals was the contemporaneous understanding of its guarantees." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 673 (1984). "[T]he line we must draw between the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding Fathers." School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 294 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring). "[H]istorical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied" to contemporaneous practices. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783, 790 (1983). Thus, "[t]he existence from the beginning of the Nation's life of a practice, [while] not conclusive of its constitutionality . . .[,] is a fact of considerable import in the interpretation" of the [633] Establishment Clause. Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 681 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).

The history and tradition of our Nation are replete with public ceremonies featuring prayers of thanksgiving and petition. Illustrations of this point have been amply provided in our prior opinions, see, e. g., Lynch, supra, at 674-678; Marsh, supra, at 786-788; see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 100-103 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 446-450, and n. 3 (1962) (Stewart, J., dissenting), but since the Court is so oblivious to our history as to suggest that the Constitution restricts "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs . . . to the private sphere," ante, at 589, it appears necessary to provide another brief account.

From our Nation's origin, prayer has been a prominent part of governmental ceremonies and proclamations. The Declaration of Independence, the document marking our birth as a separate people, "appeal[ed] to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions" and avowed "a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence." In his first inaugural address, after swearing his oath of office on a Bible, George Washington deliberately made a prayer a part of his first official act as President:

"[I]t would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes." Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. 101-10, p. 2 (1989).

Such supplications have been a characteristic feature of inaugural addresses ever since. Thomas Jefferson, for example, [634] prayed in his first inaugural address: "[M]ay that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity." Id., at 17. In his second inaugural address, Jefferson acknowledged his need for divine guidance and invited his audience to join his prayer:

"I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations." Id., at 22-23.

Similarly, James Madison, in his first inaugural address, placed his confidence

"in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations, whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as our fervent supplications and best hopes for the future." Id., at 28.

Most recently, President Bush, continuing the tradition established by President Washington, asked those attending his inauguration to bow their heads, and made a prayer his first official act as President. Id., at 346.

Our national celebration of Thanksgiving likewise dates back to President Washington. As we recounted in Lynch:

[635] "The day after the First Amendment was proposed, Congress urged President Washington to proclaim `a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.' President Washington proclaimed November 26, 1789, a day of thanksgiving to `offe[r] our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions . . . .'" 465 U. S., at 675, n. 2 (citations omitted).

This tradition of Thanksgiving Proclamations—with their religious theme of prayerful gratitude to God—has been adhered to by almost every President. Id., at 675, and nn. 2 and 3; Wallace v. Jaffree, supra, at 100-103 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

The other two branches of the Federal Government also have a long-established practice of prayer at public events. As we detailed in Marsh, congressional sessions have opened with a chaplain's prayer ever since the First Congress. 463 U. S., at 787-788. And this Court's own sessions have opened with the invocation "God save the United States and this Honorable Court" since the days of Chief Justice Marshall. 1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History 469 (1922).

In addition to this general tradition of prayer at public ceremonies, there exists a more specific tradition of invocations and benedictions at public school graduation exercises. By one account, the first public high school graduation ceremony took place in Connecticut in July 1868—the very month, as it happens, that the Fourteenth Amendment (the vehicle by which the Establishment Clause has been applied against the States) was ratified—when "15 seniors from the Norwich Free Academy marched in their best Sunday suits and dresses into a church hall and waited through majestic music and long prayers." Brodinsky, Commencement Rites Obsolete? Not At All, A 10-Week Study Shows, 10 Updating [636] School Board Policies, No. 4, p. 3 (Apr. 1979). As the Court obliquely acknowledges in describing the "customary features" of high school graduations, ante, at 583, and as respondents do not contest, the invocation and benediction have long been recognized to be "as traditional as any other parts of the [school] graduation program and are widely established." H. McKown, Commencement Activities 56 (1931); see also Brodinsky, supra, at 5.

II

The Court presumably would separate graduation invocations and benedictions from other instances of public "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs" on the ground that they involve "psychological coercion." I find it a sufficient embarrassment that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence regarding holiday displays, see County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573 (1989), has come to "requir[e] scrutiny more commonly associated with interior decorators than with the judiciary." American Jewish Congress v. Chicago, 827 F. 2d 120, 129 (CA7 1987) (Easterbrook, J., dissenting). But interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs. A few citations of "[r]esearch in psychology" that have no particular bearing upon the precise issue here, ante, at 593, cannot disguise the fact that the Court has gone beyond the realm where judges know what they are doing. The Court's argument that state officials have "coerced" students to take part in the invocation and benediction at graduation ceremonies is, not to put too fine a point on it, incoherent.

The Court identifies two "dominant facts" that it says dictate its ruling that invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies violate the Establishment Clause. Ante, at 586. Neither of them is in any relevant sense true.

[637] A

The Court declares that students' "attendance and participation in the [invocation and benediction] are in a fair and real sense obligatory." Ibid. But what exactly is this "fair and real sense"? According to the Court, students at graduation who want "to avoid the fact or appearance of participation," ante, at 588, in the invocation and benediction are psychologically obligated by "public pressure, as well as peer pressure, . . . to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence" during those prayers. Ante, at 593. This assertion—the very linchpin of the Court's opinion —is almost as intriguing for what it does not say as for what it says. It does not say, for example, that students are psychologically coerced to bow their heads, place their hands in a Dürer-like prayer position, pay attention to the prayers, utter "Amen," or in fact pray. (Perhaps further intensive psychological research remains to be done on these matters.) It claims only that students are psychologically coerced "to stand . . . or, at least, maintain respectful silence." Ibid. (emphasis added). Both halves of this disjunctive (both of which must amount to the fact or appearance of participation in prayer if the Court's analysis is to survive on its own terms) merit particular attention.

To begin with the latter: The Court's notion that a student who simply sits in "respectful silence" during the invocation and benediction (when all others are standing) has somehow joined—or would somehow be perceived as having joined— in the prayers is nothing short of ludicrous. We indeed live in a vulgar age. But surely "our social conventions," ibid., have not coarsened to the point that anyone who does not stand on his chair and shout obscenities can reasonably be deemed to have assented to everything said in his presence. Since the Court does not dispute that students exposed to prayer at graduation ceremonies retain (despite "subtle coercive pressures," ante, at 588) the free will to sit, cf. ante, at 593, there is absolutely no basis for the Court's [638] decision. It is fanciful enough to say that "a reasonable dissenter," standing head erect in a class of bowed heads, "could believe that the group exercise signified her own participation or approval of it," ibid. It is beyond the absurd to say that she could entertain such a belief while pointedly declining to rise.

But let us assume the very worst, that the nonparticipating graduate is "subtly coerced" . . . to stand! Even that half of the disjunctive does not remotely establish a "participation" (or an "appearance of participation") in a religious exercise. The Court acknowledges that "in our culture standing . . . can signify adherence to a view or simple respect for the views of others." Ibid. (Much more often the latter than the former, I think, except perhaps in the proverbial town meeting, where one votes by standing.) But if it is a permissible inference that one who is standing is doing so simply out of respect for the prayers of others that are in progress, then how can it possibly be said that a "reasonable dissenter . . . could believe that the group exercise signified her own participation or approval"? Quite obviously, it cannot. I may add, moreover, that maintaining respect for the religious observances of others is a fundamental civic virtue that government (including the public schools) can and should cultivate—so that even if it were the case that the displaying of such respect might be mistaken for taking part in the prayer, I would deny that the dissenter's interest in avoiding even the false appearance of participation constitutionally trumps the government's interest in fostering respect for religion generally.

The opinion manifests that the Court itself has not given careful consideration to its test of psychological coercion. For if it had, how could it observe, with no hint of concern or disapproval, that students stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, which immediately preceded Rabbi Gutterman's invocation? Ante, at 583. The government can, of course, no more coerce political orthodoxy than religious orthodoxy. West [639] Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642 (1943). Moreover, since the Pledge of Allegiance has been revised since Barnette to include the phrase "under God," recital of the Pledge would appear to raise the same Establishment Clause issue as the invocation and benediction. If students were psychologically coerced to remain standing during the invocation, they must also have been psychologically coerced, moments before, to stand for (and thereby, in the Court's view, take part in or appear to take part in) the Pledge. Must the Pledge therefore be barred from the public schools (both from graduation ceremonies and from the classroom)? In Barnette we held that a public school student could not be compelled to recite the Pledge; we did not even hint that she could not be compelled to observe respectful silence—indeed, even to stand in respectful silence—when those who wished to recite it did so. Logically, that ought to be the next project for the Court's bulldozer.

I also find it odd that the Court concludes that high school graduates may not be subjected to this supposed psychological coercion, yet refrains from addressing whether "mature adults" may. Ante, at 593. I had thought that the reason graduation from high school is regarded as so significant an event is that it is generally associated with transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Many graduating seniors, of course, are old enough to vote. Why, then, does the Court treat them as though they were first-graders? Will we soon have a jurisprudence that distinguishes between mature and immature adults?

B

The other "dominant fac[t]" identified by the Court is that "[s]tate officials direct the performance of a formal religious exercise" at school graduation ceremonies. Ante, at 586. "Direct[ing] the performance of a formal religious exercise" has a sound of liturgy to it, summoning up images of the principal directing acolytes where to carry the cross, or showing the rabbi where to unroll the Torah. A Court professing to be [640] engaged in a "delicate and fact-sensitive" line-drawing, ante, at 597, would better describe what it means as "prescribing the content of an invocation and benediction." But even that would be false. All the record shows is that principals of the Providence public schools, acting within their delegated authority, have invited clergy to deliver invocations and benedictions at graduations; and that Principal Lee invited Rabbi Gutterman, provided him a two-page pamphlet, prepared by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, giving general advice on inclusive prayer for civic occasions, and advised him that his prayers at graduation should be nonsectarian. How these facts can fairly be transformed into the charges that Principal Lee "directed and controlled the content of [Rabbi Gutterman's] prayer," ante, at 588, that school officials "monitor prayer," ante, at 590, and attempted to "`compose official prayers,' " ante, at 588, and that the "government involvement with religious activity in this case is pervasive," ante, at 587, is difficult to fathom. The Court identifies nothing in the record remotely suggesting that school officials have ever drafted, edited, screened, or censored graduation prayers, or that Rabbi Gutterman was a mouthpiece of the school officials.

These distortions of the record are, of course, not harmless error: without them the Court's solemn assertion that the school officials could reasonably be perceived to be "enforc[ing] a religious orthodoxy," ante, at 592, would ring as hollow as it ought.

III

The deeper flaw in the Court's opinion does not lie in its wrong answer to the question whether there was stateinduced "peer-pressure" coercion; it lies, rather, in the Court's making violation of the Establishment Clause hinge on such a precious question. The coercion that was a hallmark of historical establishments of religion was coercion of religious orthodoxy and of financial support by force of law and threat of penalty. Typically, attendance at the state [641] church was required; only clergy of the official church could lawfully perform sacraments; and dissenters, if tolerated, faced an array of civil disabilities. L. Levy, The Establishment Clause 4 (1986). Thus, for example, in the Colony of Virginia, where the Church of England had been established, ministers were required by law to conform to the doctrine and rites of the Church of England; and all persons were required to attend church and observe the Sabbath, were tithed for the public support of Anglican ministers, and were taxed for the costs of building and repairing churches. Id., at 3-4.

The Establishment Clause was adopted to prohibit such an establishment of religion at the federal level (and to protect state establishments of religion from federal interference). I will further acknowledge for the sake of argument that, as some scholars have argued, by 1790 the term "establishment" had acquired an additional meaning—"financial support of religion generally, by public taxation"—that reflected the development of "general or multiple" establishments, not limited to a single church. Id., at 8-9. But that would still be an establishment coerced by force of law. And I will further concede that our constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Independence and the first inaugural address of Washington, quoted earlier, down to the present day, has, with a few aberrations, see Church of Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U. S. 457 (1892), ruled out of order governmentsponsored endorsement of religion—even when no legal coercion is present, and indeed even when no ersatz, "peerpressure" psycho-coercion is present—where the endorsement is sectarian, in the sense of specifying details upon which men and women who believe in a benevolent, omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the world are known to differ (for example, the divinity of Christ). But there is simply no support for the proposition that the officially sponsored nondenominational invocation and benediction read by Rabbi Gutterman—with no one legally coerced to recite [642] them—violated the Constitution of the United States. To the contrary, they are so characteristically American they could have come from the pen of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln himself.

Thus, while I have no quarrel with the Court's general proposition that the Establishment Clause "guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise," ante, at 587, I see no warrant for expanding the concept of coercion beyond acts backed by threat of penalty—a brand of coercion that, happily, is readily discernible to those of us who have made a career of reading the disciples of Blackstone rather than of Freud. The Framers were indeed opposed to coercion of religious worship by the National Government; but, as their own sponsorship of nonsectarian prayer in public events demonstrates, they understood that "[s]peech is not coercive; the listener may do as he likes." American Jewish Congress v. Chicago, 827 F. 2d, at 132 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting).

This historical discussion places in revealing perspective the Court's extravagant claim that the State has "for all practical purposes," ante, at 589, and "in every practical sense," ante, at 598, compelled students to participate in prayers at graduation. Beyond the fact, stipulated to by the parties, that attendance at graduation is voluntary, there is nothing in the record to indicate that failure of attending students to take part in the invocation or benediction was subject to any penalty or discipline. Contrast this with, for example, the facts of Barnette: Schoolchildren were required by law to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; failure to do so resulted in expulsion, threatened the expelled child with the prospect of being sent to a reformatory for criminally inclined juveniles, and subjected his parents to prosecution (and incarceration) for causing delinquency. 319 U. S., at 629-630. To characterize the "subtle coercive pressures," ante, at 588, allegedly present here as the "practical" equivalent [643] of the legal sanctions in Barnette is . . . well, let me just say it is not a "delicate and fact-sensitive" analysis.

The Court relies on our "school prayer" cases, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), and School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963). Ante, at 592. But whatever the merit of those cases, they do not support, much less compel, the Court's psycho-journey. In the first place, Engel and Schempp do not constitute an exception to the rule, distilled from historical practice, that public ceremonies may include prayer, see supra, at 633-636; rather, they simply do not fall within the scope of the rule (for the obvious reason that school instruction is not a public ceremony). Second, we have made clear our understanding that school prayer occurs within a framework in which legal coercion to attend school (i. e., coercion under threat of penalty) provides the ultimate backdrop. In Schempp, for example, we emphasized that the prayers were "prescribed as part of the curricular activities of students who are required by law to attend school." 374 U. S., at 223 (emphasis added). Engel's suggestion that the school prayer program at issue there—which permitted students "to remain silent or be excused from the room," 370 U. S., at 430—involved "indirect coercive pressure," id., at 431, should be understood against this backdrop of legal coercion. The question whether the opt-out procedure in Engel sufficed to dispel the coercion resulting from the mandatory attendance requirement is quite different from the question whether forbidden coercion exists in an environment utterly devoid of legal compulsion. And finally, our school prayer cases turn in part on the fact that the classroom is inherently an instructional setting, and daily prayer there—where parents are not present to counter "the students' emulation of teachers as role models and the children's susceptibility to peer pressure," Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 584 (1987)—might be thought to raise special concerns regarding state interference with the liberty of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children: "Families entrust public [644] schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family." Ibid.; see Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535 (1925). Voluntary prayer at graduation—a onetime ceremony at which parents, friends, and relatives are present—can hardly be thought to raise the same concerns.

IV

Our Religion Clause jurisprudence has become bedeviled (so to speak) by reliance on formulaic abstractions that are not derived from, but positively conflict with, our longaccepted constitutional traditions. Foremost among these has been the so-called Lemon test, see Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971), which has received well-earned criticism from many Members of this Court. See, e. g., County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 655-656 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); Edwards v. Aguillard, supra, at 636-640 (Scalia, J., dissenting); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 108-112 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402, 426-430 (1985) (O'Connor, J., dissenting); Roemer v. Board of Pub. Works of Md., 426 U. S. 736, 768-769 (1976) (White, J., concurring in judgment). The Court today demonstrates the irrelevance of Lemon by essentially ignoring it, see ante, at 587, and the interment of that case may be the one happy by product of the Court's otherwise lamentable decision. Unfortunately, however, the Court has replaced Lemon with its psycho-coercion test, which suffers the double disability of having no roots whatever in our people's historic practice, and being as infinitely expandable as the reasons for psychotherapy itself.

Another happy aspect of the case is that it is only a jurisprudential disaster and not a practical one. Given the odd basis for the Court's decision, invocations and benedictions will be able to be given at public school graduations next [645] June, as they have for the past century and a half, so long as school authorities make clear that anyone who abstains from screaming in protest does not necessarily participate in the prayers. All that is seemingly needed is an announcement, or perhaps a written insertion at the beginning of the graduation program, to the effect that, while all are asked to rise for the invocation and benediction, none is compelled to join in them, nor will be assumed, by rising, to have done so. That obvious fact recited, the graduates and their parents may proceed to thank God, as Americans have always done, for the blessings He has generously bestowed on them and on their country.

* * *

The reader has been told much in this case about the personal interest of Mr. Weisman and his daughter, and very little about the personal interests on the other side. They are not inconsequential. Church and state would not be such a difficult subject if religion were, as the Court apparently thinks it to be, some purely personal avocation that can be indulged entirely in secret, like pornography, in the privacy of one's room. For most believers it is not that, and has never been. Religious men and women of almost all denominations have felt it necessary to acknowledge and beseech the blessing of God as a people, and not just as individuals, because they believe in the "protection of divine Providence," as the Declaration of Independence put it, not just for individuals but for societies; because they believe God to be, as Washington's first Thanksgiving Proclamation put it, the "Great Lord and Ruler of Nations." One can believe in the effectiveness of such public worship, or one can deprecate and deride it. But the longstanding American tradition of prayer at official ceremonies displays with unmistakable clarity that the Establishment Clause does not forbid the government to accommodate it.

The narrow context of the present case involves a community's celebration of one of the milestones in its young citizens' [646] lives, and it is a bold step for this Court to seek to banish from that occasion, and from thousands of similar celebrations throughout this land, the expression of gratitude to God that a majority of the community wishes to make. The issue before us today is not the abstract philosophical question whether the alternative of frustrating this desire of a religious majority is to be preferred over the alternative of imposing "psychological coercion," or a feeling of exclusion, upon nonbelievers. Rather, the question is whether a mandatory choice in favor of the former has been imposed by the United States Constitution. As the age-old practices of our people show, the answer to that question is not at all in doubt.

I must add one final observation: The Founders of our Republic knew the fearsome potential of sectarian religious belief to generate civil dissension and civil strife. And they also knew that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so inclined to foster among religious believers of various faiths a toleration—no, an affection—for one another than voluntarily joining in prayer together, to the God whom they all worship and seek. Needless to say, no one should be compelled to do that, but it is a shame to deprive our public culture of the opportunity, and indeed the encouragement, for people to do it voluntarily. The Baptist or Catholic who heard and joined in the simple and inspiring prayers of Rabbi Gutterman on this official and patriotic occasion was inoculated from religious bigotry and prejudice in a manner that cannot be replicated. To deprive our society of that important unifying mechanism, in order to spare the nonbeliever what seems to me the minimal inconvenience of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation, is as senseless in policy as it is unsupported in law.

For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.

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[1] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Board of Education of Alpine School District by Brinton R. Burbidge and Merrill F. Nelson; for the Christian Legal Society et al. by Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Michael J. Woodruff, Samuel E. Ericsson, and Forest D. Montgomery; for the Clarendon Foundation by Kemp R. Harshman and Ronald D. Maines; for Concerned Women for America et al. by James Matthew Henderson, Sr., Jordan Lorence, Mark N. Troobnick, and Thomas Patrick Monaghan; for Focus on the Family et al. by Stephen H. Galebach and Laura D. Millman; for the Liberty Counsel by Mathew D. Staver; for the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs by Nathan Lewin and Dennis Rapps; for the National Legal Foundation by Robert K. Skolrood and Brian M. McCormick; for the Rutherford Institute et al. by John W. Whitehead, Alexis I. Crow, A. Eric Johnston, Stephen E. Hurst, Joseph Secola, Thomas S. Neuberger, J. Brian Heller, Amy Dougherty, David Melton, Thomas W. Strahan, Robert R. Melnick, William Bonner, Larry Crain, W. Charles Bundren, and James Knicely; for Specialty Research Associates, Inc., et al. by Jordan Lorence; for the Southern Baptist Convention Christian Life Commission by Michael K. Whitehead and James M. Smart, Jr.; and for the United States Catholic Conference by Mark E. Chopko and Phillip H. Harris.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Americans for Religious Liberty by Ronald A. Lindsay; and for the American Jewish Congress et al. by Douglas Laycock.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the State of Delaware by Charles M. Oberly III, Attorney General of Delaware, Michael F. Foster, Solicitor General, David S. Swayze, and David B. Ripsom; for the Council on Religious Freedom et al. by Lee Boothby, Robert W. Nixon, Walter E. Carson, and Rolland Truman; for the Institute in Basic Life Principles by Joe Reynolds; for the National Coalition for Public Education and Religious Liberty et al. by David B. Isbell and T. Jeremy Gunn; and for the National School Boards Association by Gwendolyn H. Gregory, August W. Steinhilber, and Thomas A. Shannon.

[2] A few earlier cases involving federal laws touched on interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879), and Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333 (1890), the Court considered the Clause in the context of federal laws prohibiting bigamy. The Court in Reynolds accepted Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association "almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect" of the First Amendment. 98 U. S., at 164. In that letter Jefferson penned his famous lines that the Establishment Clause built "a wall of separation between church and State." Ibid. Davis considered that "[t]he first amendment to the Constitution . . . was intended . . . to prohibit legislation for the support of any religious tenets, or the modes of worship of any sect." 133 U. S., at 342. In another case, Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291 (1899), the Court held that it did not violate the Establishment Clause for Congress to construct a hospital building for caring for poor patients, although the hospital was managed by sisters of the Roman Catholic Church. The Court reasoned: "That the influence of any particular church may be powerful over the members of a non-sectarian and secular corporation, incorporated for a certain defined purpose and with clearly stated powers, is surely not sufficient to convert such a corporation into a religious or sectarian body." Id., at 298. Finally, in 1908 the Court held that "the spirit of the Constitution" did not prohibit the Indians from using their money, held by the United States Government, for religious education. See Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U. S. 50, 81.

[3] The Court articulated six examples of paradigmatic practices that the Establishment Clause prohibits: "The `establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. " Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S., at 15.

[4] The final prong, excessive entanglement, was a focus of Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 674 (1970), but harkens back to the final example in Everson: "Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. " Everson, 330 U. S., at 16. The discussion in Everson reflected the Madisonian concern that secular and religious authorities must not interfere with each other's respective spheres of choice and influence. See generally The Complete Madison 298-312 (S. Padover ed. 1953).

[5] Since 1971, the Court has decided 31 Establishment Clause cases. In only one instance, the decision of Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), has the Court not rested its decision on the basic principles described in Lemon. For example, in the most recent Establishment Clause case, Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226 (1990), the Court applied the three-part Lemon analysis to the Equal Access Act, which made it unlawful for public secondary schools to deny equal access to any student wishing to hold religious meetings. Id., at 248-253 (plurality opinion); id., at 262 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment). In no case involving religious activities in public schools has the Court failed to apply vigorously the Lemon factors.

[6] In this case, the religious message it promotes is specifically JudeoChristian. The phrase in the benediction: "We must each strive to fulfill what you require of us all,to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly" obviously was taken from the Book of the Prophet Micah, ch. 6, v. 8.

[7] As a practical matter, of course, anytime the government endorses a religious belief there will almost always be some pressure to conform. "When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain." Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 431 (1962).

[8] See, e. g., Everson, 330 U. S., at 40 (Rutledge, J., dissenting) ("`Establishment' and `free exercise' were correlative and coextensive ideas, representing only different facets of the single great and fundamental freedom"); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 227 (1963) (Douglas, J., concurring); id., at 305 (Goldberg, J., concurring); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 50 (1985).

[9] See also Engel, 370 U. S., at 431 (The Clause's "first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion"); Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., 333 U. S. 203, 212 (1948) ("[T]he First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere").

[10] "[T]he Establishment Clause is infringed when the government makes adherence to religion relevant to a person's standing in the political community. Direct government action endorsing religion or a particular religious practice is invalid under this approach because it sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 69 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (internal quotation marks omitted).

[11] Sigmund Freud expressed it this way: "a religion, even if it calls itself the religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it." S. Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego 51 (1922). James Madison stated the theory even more strongly in his "Memorial and Remonstrance" against a bill providing tax funds to religious teachers: "It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be, in its present form, from the Inquisition it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance." The Complete Madison, at 303. Religion has not lost its power to engender divisiveness. "Of all the issues the ACLU takes on—reproductive rights, discrimination, jail and prison conditions, abuse of kids in the public schools, police brutality, to name a few—by far the most volatile issue is that of school prayer. Aside from our efforts to abolish the death penalty, it is the only issue that elicits death threats." Parish, Graduation Prayer Violates the Bill of Rights, 4 Utah Bar J. 19 (June/July 1991).

[12] The view that the Establishment Clause was primarily a vehicle for protecting churches was expounded initially by Roger Williams. "[W]ordly corruptions . . .might consume the churches if sturdy fences against the wilderness were not maintained." M. Howe, The Garden and the Wilderness 6 (1965).

[13] "[B]ut when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own." 1 A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 315 (H. Reeve transl. 1900).

[14] Cf. Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 (1982) (subjecting discrimination against certain religious organizations to test of strict scrutiny).

[15] Some commentators have suggested that by targeting laws respecting "an" establishment of religion, the Framers adopted the very nonpreferentialist position whose much clearer articulation they repeatedly rejected. See, e. g., R. Cord, Separation of Church and State 11-12 (1988). Yet the indefinite article before the word "establishment" is better seen as evidence that the Clause forbids any kind of establishment, including a nonpreferential one. If the Framers had wished, for some reason, to use the indefinite term to achieve a narrow meaning for the Clause, they could far more aptly have placed it before the word "religion." See Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid to Religion: A False Claim About Original Intent, 27 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 875, 884-885 (1986) (hereinafter Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid).

[16] In his dissent in Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985), The Chief Justice rested his nonpreferentialist interpretation partly on the postratification actions of the early National Government. Aside from the willingness of some (but not all) early Presidents to issue ceremonial religious proclamations, which were at worst trivial breaches of the Establishment Clause, see infra, at 630-631, he cited such seemingly preferential aid as a treaty provision, signed by Jefferson, authorizing federal subsidization of a Roman Catholic priest and church for the Kaskaskia Indians. 472 U. S., at 103. But this proves too much, for if the Establishment Clause permits a special appropriation of tax money for the religious activities of a particular sect, it forbids virtually nothing. See Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid 915. Although evidence of historical practice can indeed furnish valuable aid in the interpretation of contemporary language, acts like the one in question prove only that public officials, no matter when they serve, can turn a blind eye to constitutional principle. See infra, at 626.

[17] In Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947), we unanimously incorporated the Establishment Clause into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and, by so doing, extended its reach to the actions of States. Id., at 14-15; see also Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940) (dictum). Since then, not one Member of this Court has proposed disincorporating the Clause.

[18] Petitioners claim that the quoted passage shows that Jefferson regarded Thanksgiving proclamations as "coercive": "Thus, while one may disagree with Jefferson's view that a recommendatory Thanksgiving proclamation would nonetheless be coercive . . . one cannot disagree that Jefferson believed coercion to be a necessary element of a First Amendment violation." Brief for Petitioners 34. But this is wordplay. The "proscription" to which Jefferson referred was, of course, by the public and not the government, whose only action was a noncoercive recommendation. And one can call any act of endorsement a form of coercion, but only if one is willing to dilute the meaning of "coercion" until there is no meaning left. Jefferson's position straightforwardly contradicts the claim that a showing of "coercion," under any normal definition, is prerequisite to a successful Establishment Clause claim. At the same time, Jefferson's practice, like Madison's, see infra this page and 625, sometimes diverged from principle, for he did include religious references in his inaugural speeches. See Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States 17, 22-23 (1989); see also n. 3, supra.

Petitioners also seek comfort in a different passage of the same letter. Jefferson argued that Presidential religious proclamations violate not just the Establishment Clause, but also the Tenth Amendment, for "what might be a right in a state government, was a violation of that right when assumed by another." Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rev. S. Miller (Jan. 23, 1808), in 5 The Founders' Constitution 99 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). Jefferson did not, however, restrict himself to the Tenth Amendment in condemning such proclamations by a national officer. I do not, in any event, understand petitioners to be arguing that the Establishment Clause is exclusively a structural provision mediating the respective powers of the State and National Governments. Such a position would entail the argument, which petitioners do not make, and which we would almost certainly reject, that incorporation of the Establishment Clause under the Fourteenth Amendment was erroneous.

[19] Madison found this practice "a palpable violation of . . . Constitutional principles." Madison's "Detached Memoranda" 558. Although he sat on the committee recommending the congressional chaplainship, see R. Cord, Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction 23 (1988), he later insisted that "it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from [the immunity of religion from civil jurisdiction] took place in Congs., when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Natl. Treasury." Letter from J. Madison to E. Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 5 The Founders' Constitution, at 105.

[20] See, e. g., Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 726 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Choper, The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment: Reconciling the Conflict, 41 U. Pitt.L. Rev. 673, 685-686 (1980); see also Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 668-669 (1970); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 414, 416 (1963) (Stewart, J.,concurring in result);cf.Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S., at 83 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment).

[21] If the State had chosen its graduation day speakers according to wholly secular criteria, and if one of those speakers (not a state actor) had individually chosen to deliver a religious message, it would have been harder to attribute an endorsement of religion to the State. Cf. Witters v. Washington Dept. of Services for Blind, 474 U. S. 481 (1986). But that is not our case. Nor is this a case where the State has, without singling out religious groups or individuals, extended benefits to them as members of a broad class of beneficiaries defined by clearly secular criteria. See Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 274-275 (1981); Walz, supra, at 696 (opinion of Harlan, J.) ("In any particular case the critical question is whether the circumference of legislation encircles a class so broad that it can be fairly concluded that religious institutions could be thought to fall within the natural perimeter"). Finally, this is not a case like Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), in which government officials invoke spiritual inspiration entirely for their own benefit without directing any religious message at the citizens they lead.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

[292] Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Rehnquist, [293] C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined, post, p. 318.

Jay Alan Sekulow argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Colby M. May, James M. Henderson, Sr., Mark N. Troobnick, Walter M. Weber, Paul D. Clement, John G. Stepanovich, Thomas P. Monaghan, Stuart J. Roth, John P. Tuskey, Joel H. Thornton, David A. Cortman, and Kelly Shackelford.

John Cornyn, Attorney General of Texas, argued the cause for the State of Texas et al. as amici curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Andy Taylor, First Assistant Attorney General, Linda S. Eads, Deputy Attorney General, Gregory S. Coleman, Solicitor General, Julie Caruthers Parsley, Deputy Solicitor General, and Meredith B. Parenti, Assistant Solicitor General.

Anthony P. Griffin argued the cause for respondents. With him on the briefs were Douglas Laycock and Steven R. Shapiro.^[1]

[294] Justice Stevens, delivered the opinion of the Court.

Prior to 1995, the Santa Fe High School student who occupied the school's elective office of student council chaplain delivered a prayer over the public address system before each varsity football game for the entire season. This practice, along with others, was challenged in District Court as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. While these proceedings were pending in the District Court, the school district adopted a different policy that permits, but does not require, prayer initiated and led by a student at all home games. The District Court entered an order modifying that policy to permit only nonsectarian, nonproselytizing prayer. The Court of Appeals held that, even as modified by the District Court, the football prayer policy was invalid. We granted the school district's petition for certiorari to review that holding.

I

The Santa Fe Independent School District (District) is a political subdivision of the State of Texas, responsible for the education of more than 4,000 students in a small community in the southern part of the State. The District includes the Santa Fe High School, two primary schools, an intermediate school and the junior high school. Respondents are two sets of current or former students and their respective mothers. One family is Mormon and the other is Catholic. The District Court permitted respondents (Does) to litigate anonymously to protect them from intimidation or harassment.^[2]

[295] Respondents commenced this action in April 1995 and moved for a temporary restraining order to prevent the District from violating the Establishment Clause at the imminent graduation exercises. In their complaint the Does alleged that the District had engaged in several proselytizing practices, such as promoting attendance at a Baptist revival meeting, encouraging membership in religious clubs, chastising children who held minority religious beliefs, and distributing Gideon Bibles on school premises. They also alleged that the District allowed students to read Christian invocations and benedictions from the stage at graduation ceremonies,^[3] and to deliver overtly Christian prayers over the public address system at home football games.

On May 10, 1995, the District Court entered an interim order addressing a number of different issues.^[4] With respect [296] to the impending graduation, the order provided that "non-denominational prayer" consisting of "an invocation and/or benediction" could be presented by a senior student or students selected by members of the graduating class. The text of the prayer was to be determined by the students, without scrutiny or preapproval by school officials. References to particular religious figures "such as Mohammed, Jesus, Buddha, or the like" would be permitted "as long as the general thrust of the prayer is non-proselytizing." App. 32.

In response to that portion of the order, the District adopted a series of policies over several months dealing with prayer at school functions. The policies enacted in May and July for graduation ceremonies provided the format for the August and October policies for football games. The May policy provided:

"`The board has chosen to permit the graduating senior class, with the advice and counsel of the senior class principal or designee, to elect by secret ballot to choose whether an invocation and benediction shall be part of the graduation exercise. If so chosen the class shall elect by secret ballot, from a list of student volunteers, students to deliver nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocations and benedictions for the purpose of solemnizing [297] their graduation ceremonies.' " 168 F. 3d 806, 811 (CA5 1999) (emphasis deleted).

The parties stipulated that after this policy was adopted, "the senior class held an election to determine whether to have an invocation and benediction at the commencement [and that the] class voted, by secret ballot, to include prayer at the high school graduation." App. 52. In a second vote the class elected two seniors to deliver the invocation and benediction.^[5]

In July, the District enacted another policy eliminating the requirement that invocations and benedictions be "nonsectarian and nonproselytising," but also providing that if the District were to be enjoined from enforcing that policy, the May policy would automatically become effective.

The August policy, which was titled "Prayer at Football Games," was similar to the July policy for graduations. It also authorized two student elections, the first to determine whether "invocations" should be delivered, and the second to select the spokesperson to deliver them. Like the July policy, it contained two parts, an initial statement that omitted any requirement that the content of the invocation be "nonsectarian and nonproselytising," and a fallback provision that automatically added that limitation if the preferred policy should be enjoined. On August 31, 1995, according to the parties' stipulation: "[T]he district's high school students voted to determine whether a student would deliver prayer at varsity football games. . . . The students chose to allow a [298] student to say a prayer at football games." Id., at 65. A week later, in a separate election, they selected a student "to deliver the prayer at varsity football games." Id., at 66.

The final policy (October policy) is essentially the same as the August policy, though it omits the word "prayer" from its title, and refers to "messages" and "statements" as well as "invocations."^[6] It is the validity of that policy that is before us.^[7]

[299] The District Court did enter an order precluding enforcement of the first, open-ended policy. Relying on our decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992), it held that the school's "action must not `coerce anyone to support or participate in' a religious exercise." App. to Pet. for Cert. E7. Applying that test, it concluded that the graduation prayers appealed "to distinctively Christian beliefs,"^[8] and that delivering a prayer "over the school's public address system prior to each football and baseball game coerces student participation in religious events."^[9] Both parties appealed, the District contending that the enjoined portion of the October policy was permissible and the Does contending that both alternatives violated the Establishment Clause. The Court of Appeals majority agreed with the Does.

The decision of the Court of Appeals followed Fifth Circuit precedent that had announced two rules. In Jones v. Clear Creek Independent School Dist., 977 F. 2d 963 (1992), that court held that student-led prayer that was approved by a vote of the students and was nonsectarian and nonproselytizing was permissible at high school graduation ceremonies. On the other hand, in later cases the Fifth Circuit made it clear that the Clear Creek rule applied only to high school [300] graduations and that school-encouraged prayer was constitutionally impermissible at school-related sporting events. Thus, in Doe v. Duncanville Independent School Dist., 70 F. 3d 402 (1995), it had described a high school graduation as "a significant, once in-a-lifetime event" to be contrasted with athletic events in "a setting that is far less solemn and extraordinary." Id., at 406-407.^[10]

In its opinion in this case, the Court of Appeals explained:

"The controlling feature here is the same as in Duncanville: The prayers are to be delivered at football games—hardly the sober type of annual event that can be appropriately solemnized with prayer. The distinction to which [the District] points is simply one without difference. Regardless of whether the prayers are selected by vote or spontaneously initiated at these frequently-recurring, informal, school-sponsored events, school officials are present and have the authority to stop the prayers. Thus, as we indicated in Duncan- ville, our decision in Clear Creek II hinged on the singular context and singularly serious nature of a graduation ceremony. Outside that nurturing context, a Clear Creek Prayer Policy cannot survive. We therefore reverse the district court's holding that [the District's] alternative Clear Creek Prayer Policy can be extended to football games, irrespective of the presence of the nonsectarian, nonproselytizing restrictions." 168 F. 3d, at 823.

The dissenting judge rejected the majority's distinction between graduation ceremonies and football games. In his [301] opinion the District's October policy created a limited public forum that had a secular purpose^[11] and provided neutral accommodation of noncoerced, private, religious speech.^[12]

We granted the District's petition for certiorari, limited to the following question: "Whether petitioner's policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at football games violates the Establishment Clause." 528 U. S. 1002 (1999). We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that it does.

II

The first Clause in the First Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The Fourteenth Amendment imposes those substantive limitations on the legislative power of the States and their political subdivisions. Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 49-50 (1985). In Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992), we held that a prayer delivered by a rabbi at a middle school graduation ceremony violated that Clause. Although this case involves student prayer at a different [302] type of school function, our analysis is properly guided by the principles that we endorsed in Lee.

As we held in that case:

"The principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed by the Establishment Clause. It is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which `establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so.' " Id., at 587 (citations omitted) (quoting Lynch v. Don- nelly, 465 U. S. 668, 678 (1984)).

In this case the District first argues that this principle is inapplicable to its October policy because the messages are private student speech, not public speech. It reminds us that "there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect." Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 250 (1990) (opinion of O'Connor, J.). We certainly agree with that distinction, but we are not persuaded that the pregame invocations should be regarded as "private speech."

These invocations are authorized by a government policy and take place on government property at governmentsponsored school-related events. Of course, not every message delivered under such circumstances is the government's own. We have held, for example, that an individual's contribution to a government-created forum was not government speech. See Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995). Although the District relies heavily on Rosenberger and similar cases involving such [303] forums,^[13] it is clear that the pregame ceremony is not the type of forum discussed in those cases.^[14] The Santa Fe school officials simply do not "evince either `by policy or by practice,' any intent to open the [pregame ceremony] to `indiscriminate use,' . . . by the student body generally." Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S. 260, 270 (1988) (quoting Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 47 (1983)). Rather, the school allows only one student, the same student for the entire season, to give the invocation. The statement or invocation, moreover, is subject to particular regulations that confine the content and topic of the student's message, see infra, at 306— 307, 309. By comparison, in Perry we rejected a claim that the school had created a limited public forum in its school mail system despite the fact that it had allowed far more speakers to address a much broader range of topics than the policy at issue here.^[15] As we concluded in Perry, "selective access does not transform government property into a public forum." 460 U. S., at 47.

[304] Granting only one student access to the stage at a time does not, of course, necessarily preclude a finding that a school has created a limited public forum. Here, however, Santa Fe's student election system ensures that only those messages deemed "appropriate" under the District's policy may be delivered. That is, the majoritarian process implemented by the District guarantees, by definition, that minority candidates will never prevail and that their views will be effectively silenced.

Recently, in Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217 (2000), we explained why student elections that determine, by majority vote, which expressive activities shall receive or not receive school benefits are constitutionally problematic:

"To the extent the referendum substitutes majority determinations for viewpoint neutrality it would undermine the constitutional protection the program requires. The whole theory of viewpoint neutrality is that minority views are treated with the same respect as are majority views. Access to a public forum, for instance, does not depend upon majoritarian consent. That principle is controlling here." Id., at 235.

Like the student referendum for funding in Southworth, this student election does nothing to protect minority views but rather places the students who hold such views at the mercy of the majority.^[16] Because "fundamental rights may not be [305] submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections," West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 638 (1943), the District's elections are insufficient safeguards of diverse student speech.

In Lee, the school district made the related argument that its policy of endorsing only "civic or nonsectarian" prayer was acceptable because it minimized the intrusion on the audience as a whole. We rejected that claim by explaining that such a majoritarian policy "does not lessen the offense or isolation to the objectors. At best it narrows their number, at worst increases their sense of isolation and affront." 505 U. S., at 594. Similarly, while Santa Fe's majoritarian election might ensure that most of the students are represented, it does nothing to protect the minority; indeed, it likely serves to intensify their offense.

Moreover, the District has failed to divorce itself from the religious content in the invocations. It has not succeeded in doing so, either by claiming that its policy is "`one of neutrality rather than endorsement' "^[17] or by characterizing the individual student as the "circuit-breaker"^[18] in the process. Contrary to the District's repeated assertions that it has adopted a "hands-off" approach to the pregame invocation, the realities of the situation plainly reveal that its policy involves both perceived and actual endorsement of religion. In this case, as we found in Lee, the "degree of school involvement" makes it clear that the pregame prayers bear "the imprint of the State and thus put school-age children who objected in an untenable position." Id., at 590.

The District has attempted to disentangle itself from the religious messages by developing the two-step student [306] election process. The text of the October policy, however, exposes the extent of the school's entanglement. The elections take place at all only because the school "board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message." App. 104 (emphasis added). The elections thus "shall" be conducted "by the high school student council" and "[u]pon advice and direction of the high school principal." Id., at 104-105. The decision whether to deliver a message is first made by majority vote of the entire student body, followed by a choice of the speaker in a separate, similar majority election. Even though the particular words used by the speaker are not determined by those votes, the policy mandates that the "statement or invocation" be "consistent with the goals and purposes of this policy," which are "to solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition." Ibid.

In addition to involving the school in the selection of the speaker, the policy, by its terms, invites and encourages religious messages. The policy itself states that the purpose of the message is "to solemnize the event." A religious message is the most obvious method of solemnizing an event. Moreover, the requirements that the message "promote good sportsmanship" and "establish the appropriate environment for competition" further narrow the types of message deemed appropriate, suggesting that a solemn, yet nonreligious, message, such as commentary on United States foreign policy, would be prohibited.^[19] Indeed, the only type of message that is expressly endorsed in the text is an "invocation"—a term that primarily describes an appeal for divine [307] assistance.^[20] In fact, as used in the past at Santa Fe High School, an "invocation" has always entailed a focused religious message. Thus, the expressed purposes of the policy encourage the selection of a religious message, and that is precisely how the students understand the policy. The results of the elections described in the parties' stipulation^[21] make it clear that the students understood that the central question before them was whether prayer should be a part of the pregame ceremony.^[22] We recognize the important role that public worship plays in many communities, as well as the sincere desire to include public prayer as a part of various occasions so as to mark those occasions' significance. But such religious activity in public schools, as elsewhere, must comport with the First Amendment.

The actual or perceived endorsement of the message, moreover, is established by factors beyond just the text of the policy. Once the student speaker is selected and the message composed, the invocation is then delivered to a large audience assembled as part of a regularly scheduled, school-sponsored function conducted on school property. The message is broadcast over the school's public address system, which remains subject to the control of school officials. It is fair to assume that the pregame ceremony is [308] clothed in the traditional indicia of school sporting events, which generally include not just the team, but also cheerleaders and band members dressed in uniforms sporting the school name and mascot. The school's name is likely written in large print across the field and on banners and flags. The crowd will certainly include many who display the school colors and insignia on their school T-shirts, jackets, or hats and who may also be waving signs displaying the school name. It is in a setting such as this that "[t]he board has chosen to permit" the elected student to rise and give the "statement or invocation."

In this context the members of the listening audience must perceive the pregame message as a public expression of the views of the majority of the student body delivered with the approval of the school administration. In cases involving state participation in a religious activity, one of the relevant questions is "whether an objective observer, acquainted with the text, legislative history, and implementation of the statute, would perceive it as a state endorsement of prayer in public schools." Wallace, 472 U. S., at 73, 76 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 777 (1995) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Regardless of the listener's support for, or objection to, the message, an objective Santa Fe High School student will unquestionably perceive the inevitable pregame prayer as stamped with her school's seal of approval.

The text and history of this policy, moreover, reinforce our objective student's perception that the prayer is, in actuality, encouraged by the school. When a governmental entity professes a secular purpose for an arguably religious policy, the government's characterization is, of course, entitled to some deference. But it is nonetheless the duty of the courts to "distinguis[h] a sham secular purpose from a sincere one." Wallace, 472 U. S., at 75 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment).

[309] According to the District, the secular purposes of the policy are to "foste[r] free expression of private persons . . . as well [as to] solemniz[e] sporting events, promot[e] good sportsmanship and student safety, and establis[h] an appropriate environment for competition." Brief for Petitioner 14. We note, however, that the District's approval of only one specific kind of message, an "invocation," is not necessary to further any of these purposes. Additionally, the fact that only one student is permitted to give a content-limited message suggests that this policy does little to "foste[r] free expression." Furthermore, regardless of whether one considers a sporting event an appropriate occasion for solemnity, the use of an invocation to foster such solemnity is impermissible when, in actuality, it constitutes prayer sponsored by the school. And it is unclear what type of message would be both appropriately "solemnizing" under the District's policy and yet nonreligious.

Most striking to us is the evolution of the current policy from the long-sanctioned office of "Student Chaplain" to the candidly titled "Prayer at Football Games" regulation. This history indicates that the District intended to preserve the practice of prayer before football games. The conclusion that the District viewed the October policy simply as a continuation of the previous policies is dramatically illustrated by the fact that the school did not conduct a new election, pursuant to the current policy, to replace the results of the previous election, which occurred under the former policy. Given these observations, and in light of the school's history of regular delivery of a student-led prayer at athletic events, it is reasonable to infer that the specific purpose of the policy was to preserve a popular "state-sponsored religious practice." Lee, 505 U. S., at 596.

School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherants "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying [310] message to adherants that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." Lynch, 465 U. S., at 688 (O'Connor, J., concurring). The delivery of such a message—over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer—is not properly characterized as "private" speech.

III

The District next argues that its football policy is distinguishable from the graduation prayer in Lee because it does not coerce students to participate in religious observances. Its argument has two parts: first, that there is no impermissible government coercion because the pregame messages are the product of student choices; and second, that there is really no coercion at all because attendance at an extracurricular event, unlike a graduation ceremony, is voluntary.

The reasons just discussed explaining why the alleged "circuit-breaker" mechanism of the dual elections and student speaker do not turn public speech into private speech also demonstrate why these mechanisms do not insulate the school from the coercive element of the final message. In fact, this aspect of the District's argument exposes anew the concerns that are created by the majoritarian election system. The parties' stipulation clearly states that the issue resolved in the first election was "whether a student would deliver prayer at varsity football games," App. 65, and the controversy in this case demonstrates that the views of the students are not unanimous on that issue.

One of the purposes served by the Establishment Clause is to remove debate over this kind of issue from governmental supervision or control. We explained in Lee that the "preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere." 505 U. S., at 589. The two student elections authorized [311] by the policy, coupled with the debates that presumably must precede each, impermissibly invade that private sphere. The election mechanism, when considered in light of the history in which the policy in question evolved, reflects a device the District put in place that determines whether religious messages will be delivered at home football games. The mechanism encourages divisiveness along religious lines in a public school setting, a result at odds with the Establishment Clause. Although it is true that the ultimate choice of student speaker is"attributable to the students," Brief for Petitioner 40, the District's decision to hold the constitutionally problematic election is clearly "a choice attributable to the State," Lee, 505 U. S., at 587.

The District further argues that attendance at the commencement ceremonies at issue in Lee "differs dramatically" from attendance at high school football games, which it contends "are of no more than passing interest to many students" and are "decidedly extracurricular," thus dissipating any coercion. Brief for Petitioner 41. Attendance at a high school football game, unlike showing up for class, is certainly not required in order to receive a diploma. Moreover, we may assume that the District is correct in arguing that the informal pressure to attend an athletic event is not as strong as a senior's desire to attend her own graduation ceremony.

There are some students, however, such as cheerleaders, members of the band, and, of course, the team members themselves, for whom seasonal commitments mandate their attendance, sometimes for class credit. The District also minimizes the importance to many students of attending and participating in extracurricular activities as part of a complete educational experience. As we noted in Lee, "[l]aw reaches past formalism." 505 U. S., at 595. To assert that high school students do not feel immense social pressure, or have a truly genuine desire, to be involved in the extracurricular event that is American high school football is "formalistic in the extreme." Ibid. We stressed in Lee the [312] obvious observation that "adolescents are often susceptible to pressure from their peers towards conformity, and that the influence is strongest in matters of social convention." Id., at 593. High school home football games are traditional gatherings of a school community; they bring together students and faculty as well as friends and family from years present and past to root for a common cause. Undoubtedly, the games are not important to some students, and they voluntarily choose not to attend. For many others, however, the choice between attending these games and avoiding personally offensive religious rituals is in no practical sense an easy one. The Constitution, moreover, demands that the school may not force this difficult choice upon these students for "[i]t is a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to statesponsored religious practice." Id., at 596.

Even if we regard every high school student's decision to attend a home football game as purely voluntary, we are nevertheless persuaded that the delivery of a pregame prayer has the improper effect of coercing those present to participate in an act of religious worship. For "the government may no more use social pressure to enforce orthodoxy than it may use more direct means." Id., at 594. As in Lee, "[w]hat to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy." Id., at 592. The constitutional command will not permit the District "to exact religious conformity from a student as the price" of joining her classmates at a varsity football game.^[23]

[313] The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment prevent the government from making any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. By no means do these commands impose a prohibition on all religious activity in our public schools. See, e.g., Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384, 395 (1993); Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226 (1990); Wallace, 472 U. S., at 59. Indeed, the common purpose of the Religion Clauses "is to secure religious liberty." Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 430 (1962). Thus, nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday. But the religious liberty protected by the Constitution is abridged when the State affirmatively sponsors the particular religious practice of prayer.

IV

Finally, the District argues repeatedly that the Does have made a premature facial challenge to the October policy that necessarily must fail. The District emphasizes, quite correctly, that until a student actually delivers a solemnizing message under the latest version of the policy, there can be no certainty that any of the statements or invocations will be religious. Thus, it concludes, the October policy necessarily survives a facial challenge.

This argument, however, assumes that we are concerned only with the serious constitutional injury that occurs when a student is forced to participate in an act of religious worship [314] because she chooses to attend a school event. But the Constitution also requires that we keep in mind "the myriad, subtle ways in which Establishment Clause values can be eroded," Lynch, 465 U. S., at 694 (O'Connor, J., concurring), and that we guard against other different, yet equally important, constitutional injuries. One is the mere passage by the District of a policy that has the purpose and perception of government establishment of religion. Another is the implementation of a governmental electoral process that subjects the issue of prayer to a majoritarian vote.

The District argues that the facial challenge must fail because "Santa Fe's Football Policy cannot be invalidated on the basis of some `possibility or even likelihood' of an unconstitutional application." Brief for Petitioner 17 (quoting Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 613 (1988)). Our Establishment Clause cases involving facial challenges, however, have not focused solely on the possible applications of the statute, but rather have considered whether the statute has an unconstitutional purpose. Writing for the Court in Bowen, The Chief Justice concluded that "[a]s in previous cases involving facial challenges on Establishment Clause grounds, e.g., Edwards v. Aguillard, [482 U. S. 578 (1987)]; Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 (1983), we assess the constitutionality of an enactment by reference to the three factors first articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612 (1971) . . . , which guides `[t]he general nature of our inquiry in this area,' Mueller v. Allen, supra, at 394." 487 U. S., at 602. Under the Lemon standard, a court must invalidate a statute if it lacks "a secular legislative purpose." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612 (1971). It is therefore proper, as part of this facial challenge, for us to examine the purpose of the October policy.

As discussed, supra, at 306-307, 309, the text of the October policy alone reveals that it has an unconstitutional purpose. The plain language of the policy clearly spells out the extent of school involvement in both the election of the speaker [315] and the content of the message. Additionally, the text of the October policy specifies only one, clearly preferred message—that of Santa Fe's traditional religious "invocation." Finally, the extremely selective access of the policy and other content restrictions confirm that it is not a content-neutral regulation that creates a limited public forum for the expression of student speech. Our examination, however, need not stop at an analysis of the text of the policy.

This case comes to us as the latest step in developing litigation brought as a challenge to institutional practices that unquestionably violated the Establishment Clause. One of those practices was the District's long-established tradition of sanctioning student-led prayer at varsity football games. The narrow question before us is whether implementation of the October policy insulates the continuation of such prayers from constitutional scrutiny. It does not. Our inquiry into this question not only can, but must, include an examination of the circumstances surrounding its enactment. Whether a government activity violates the Establishment Clause is "in large part a legal question to be answered on the basis of judicial interpretation of social facts. . . . Every government practice must be judged in its unique circumstances . . . ." Lynch, 465 U. S., at 693-694 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Our discussion in the previous sections, supra, at 307-310, demonstrates that in this case the District's direct involvement with school prayer exceeds constitutional limits.

The District, nevertheless, asks us to pretend that we do not recognize what every Santa Fe High School student understands clearly—that this policy is about prayer. The District further asks us to accept what is obviously untrue: that these messages are necessary to "solemnize" a football game and that this single-student, year-long position is essential to the protection of student speech. We refuse to turn a blind eye to the context in which this policy arose, and that context quells any doubt that this policy was implemented with the purpose of endorsing school prayer.

[316] Therefore, the simple enactment of this policy, with the purpose and perception of school endorsement of student prayer, was a constitutional violation. We need not wait for the inevitable to confirm and magnify the constitutional injury. In Wallace, for example, we invalidated Alabama's as yet unimplemented and voluntary "moment of silence" statute based on our conclusion that it was enacted "for the sole purpose of expressing the State's endorsement of prayer activities for one minute at the beginning of each school day." 472 U. S., at 60; see also Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 532 (1993). Therefore, even if no Santa Fe High School student were ever to offer a religious message, the October policy fails a facial challenge because the attempt by the District to encourage prayer is also at issue. Government efforts to endorse religion cannot evade constitutional reproach based solely on the remote possibility that those attempts may fail.

This policy likewise does not survive a facial challenge because it impermissibly imposes upon the student body a majoritarian election on the issue of prayer. Through its election scheme, the District has established a governmental electoral mechanism that turns the school into a forum for religious debate. It further empowers the student body majority with the authority to subject students of minority views to constitutionally improper messages. The award of that power alone, regardless of the students' ultimate use of it, is not acceptable.^[24] Like the referendum in Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. [317] 217 (2000), the election mechanism established by the District undermines the essential protection of minority viewpoints. Such a system encourages divisiveness along religious lines and threatens the imposition of coercion upon those students not desiring to participate in a religious exercise. Simply by establishing this school-related procedure, which entrusts the inherently nongovernmental subject of religion to a majoritarian vote, a constitutional violation has occurred.^[25] No further injury is required for the policy to fail a facial challenge.

To properly examine this policy on its face, we "must be deemed aware of the history and context of the community and forum," Pinette, 515 U. S., at 780 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Our examination of those circumstances above leads to the conclusion that this policy does not provide the District with the constitutional safe harbor it sought. The policy is invalid on its face because it establishes an improper majoritarian election on religion, and unquestionably has the purpose and creates the perception of encouraging the delivery of prayer at a series of important school events.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, accordingly, affirmed.

It is so ordered.

[318] Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.

The Court distorts existing precedent to conclude that the school district's student-message program is invalid on its face under the Establishment Clause. But even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Court's opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life. Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, when it is recalled that George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God." Presidential Proclamation, 1 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897, p. 64 (J. Richardson ed. 1897).

We do not learn until late in the Court's opinion that respondents in this case challenged the district's studentmessage program at football games before it had been put into practice. As the Court explained in United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745 (1987), the fact that a policy might "operate unconstitutionally under some conceivable set of circumstances is insufficient to render it wholly invalid." See also Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 612 (1988). While there is an exception to this principle in the First Amendment overbreadth context because of our concern that people may refrain from speech out of fear of prosecution, Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., 528 U. S. 32, 38-40 (1999), there is no similar justification for Establishment Clause cases. No speech will be "chilled" by the existence of a government policy that might unconstitutionally endorse religion over nonreligion. Therefore, the question is not whether the district's policy may be applied in violation of the Establishment Clause, but whether it inevitably will be.

[319] The Court, venturing into the realm of prophecy, decides that it "need not wait for the inevitable" and invalidates the district's policy on its face. See ante, at 316. To do so, it applies the most rigid version of the oft-criticized test of Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971).^[26]

Lemon has had a checkered career in the decisional law of this Court. See, e.g., Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384, 398-399 (1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (collecting opinions criticizing Lemon ); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 108-114 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (stating that Lemon `s "three-part test represents a determined effort to craft a workable rule from a historically faulty doctrine; but the rule can only be as sound as the doctrine it attempts to service" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Committee for Public Ed. and Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U. S. 646, 671 (1980) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (deriding "the sisyphean task of trying to patch together the blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier described in Lemon "). We have even gone so far as to state that it has never been binding on us. Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 679 (1984) ("[W]e have repeatedly emphasized our unwillingness to be confined to any single test or criterion in this sensitive area. . . . In two cases, the Court did not even apply the Lemon `test' [citing Marsh [320] v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), and Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 (1982)]"). Indeed, in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992), an opinion upon which the Court relies heavily today, we mentioned, but did not feel compelled to apply, the Lemon test. See also Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 233 (1997) (stating that Lemon `s entanglement test is merely "an aspect of the inquiry into a statute's effect"); Hunt v. McNair, 413 U. S. 734, 741 (1973) (stating that the Lemon factors are "no more than helpful signposts").

Even if it were appropriate to apply the Lemon test here, the district's student-message policy should not be invalidated on its face. The Court applies Lemon and holds that the "policy is invalid on its face because it establishes an improper majoritarian election on religion, and unquestionably has the purpose and creates the perception of encouraging the delivery of prayer at a series of important school events." Ante, at 317. The Court's reliance on each of these conclusions misses the mark.

First, the Court misconstrues the nature of the "majoritarian election" permitted by the policy as being an election on "prayer" and "religion."^[27] See ante, at 314, 317. To the contrary, the election permitted by the policy is a two-fold process whereby students vote first on whether to have a student speaker before football games at all, and second, if the students vote to have such a speaker, on who that speaker will be. App. 104-105. It is conceivable that the election could become one in which student candidates campaign on platforms that focus on whether or not they will [321] pray if elected. It is also conceivable that the election could lead to a Christian prayer before 90 percent of the football games. If, upon implementation, the policy operated in this fashion, we would have a record before us to review whether the policy, as applied, violated the Establishment Clause or unduly suppressed minority viewpoints. But it is possible that the students might vote not to have a pregame speaker, in which case there would be no threat of a constitutional violation. It is also possible that the election would not focus on prayer, but on public speaking ability or social popularity. And if student campaigning did begin to focus on prayer, the school might decide to implement reasonable campaign restrictions.^[28]

But the Court ignores these possibilities by holding that merely granting the student body the power to elect a speaker that may choose to pray, "regardless of the students' ultimate use of it, is not acceptable." Ante, at 316. The Court so holds despite that any speech that may occur as a result of the election process here would be private, not government, speech. The elected student, not the government, would choose what to say. Support for the Court's holding cannot be found in any of our cases. And it essentially invalidates all student elections. A newly elected student body president, or even a newly elected prom king or queen, could use opportunities for public speaking to say prayers. Under the Court's view, the mere grant of power [322] to the students to vote for such offices, in light of the fear that those elected might publicly pray, violates the Establishment Clause.

Second, with respect to the policy's purpose, the Court holds that "the simple enactment of this policy, with the purpose and perception of school endorsement of student prayer, was a constitutional violation." Ante, at 316. But the policy itself has plausible secular purposes: "[T]o solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition." App. 104-105. Where a governmental body "expresses a plausible secular purpose" for an enactment, "courts should generally defer to that stated intent." Wallace, 472 U. S., at 74-75 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 394-395 (1983) (stressing this Court's "reluctance to attribute unconstitutional motives to the States, particularly when a plausible secular purpose for the State's program may be discerned from the face of the statute"). The Court grants no deference to—and appears openly hostile toward—the policy's stated purposes, and wastes no time in concluding that they are a sham.

For example, the Court dismisses the secular purpose of solemnization by claiming that it "invites and encourages religious messages." Ante, at 306; Cf. Lynch, 465 U. S., at 693 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (discussing the "legitimate secular purposes of solemnizing public occasions"). The Court so concludes based on its rather strange view that a "religious message is the most obvious means of solemnizing an event." Ante, at 306. But it is easy to think of solemn messages that are not religious in nature, for example urging that a game be fought fairly. And sporting events often begin with a solemn rendition of our national anthem, with its concluding verse "And this be our motto: `In God is our trust.' " Under the Court's logic, a public school that sponsors [323] the singing of the national anthem before football games violates the Establishment Clause. Although the Court apparently believes that solemnizing football games is an illegitimate purpose, the voters in the school district seem to disagree. Nothing in the Establishment Clause prevents them from making this choice.^[29]

The Court bases its conclusion that the true purpose of the policy is to endorse student prayer on its view of the school district's history of Establishment Clause violations and the context in which the policy was written, that is, as "the latest step in developing litigation brought as a challenge to institutional practices that unquestionably violated the Establishment Clause." Ante, at 308-309, 315. But the context—attempted compliance with a District Court order—actually demonstrates that the school district was acting diligently to come within the governing constitutional law. The District Court ordered the school district to formulate a policy consistent with Fifth Circuit precedent, which permitted a school district to have a prayer-only policy. See Jones v. Clear Creek Independent School Dist., 977 F. 2d 963 (CA5 1992). But the school district went further than required by the District Court order and eventually settled on a policy that gave the student speaker a choice to deliver either an [324] invocation or a message. In so doing, the school district exhibited a willingness to comply with, and exceed, Establishment Clause restrictions. Thus, the policy cannot be viewed as having a sectarian purpose.^[30]

The Court also relies on our decision in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577 (1992), to support its conclusion. In Lee, we concluded that the content of the speech at issue, a graduation prayer given by a rabbi, was "directed and controlled" by a school official. Id., at 588. In other words, at issue in Lee was government speech. Here, by contrast, the potential speech at issue, if the policy had been allowed to proceed, would be a message or invocation selected or created by a student. That is, if there were speech at issue here, it would be private speech. The "crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect," applies with particular force to the question of endorsement. Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 250 (1990) (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original).

Had the policy been put into practice, the students may have chosen a speaker according to wholly secular criteria—like good public speaking skills or social popularity—and the student speaker may have chosen, on her own accord, to deliver a religious message. Such an application of the policy [325] would likely pass constitutional muster. See Lee, supra, at 630, n. 8 (Souter, J., concurring) ("If the State had chosen its graduation day speakers according to wholly secular criteria, and if one of those speakers (not a state actor) had individually chosen to deliver a religious message, it would be harder to attribute an endorsement of religion to the State").

Finally, the Court seems to demand that a government policy be completely neutral as to content or be considered one that endorses religion. See ante, at 305. This is undoubtedly a new requirement, as our Establishment Clause jurisprudence simply does not mandate "content neutrality." That concept is found in our First Amendment speech cases and is used as a guide for determining when we apply strict scrutiny. For example, we look to "content neutrality" in reviewing loudness restrictions imposed on speech in public forums, see Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U. S. 781 (1989), and regulations against picketing, see Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312 (1988). The Court seems to think that the fact that the policy is not content neutral somehow controls the Establishment Clause inquiry. See ante, at 305.

But even our speech jurisprudence would not require that all public school actions with respect to student speech be content neutral. See, e.g., Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U. S. 675 (1986) (allowing the imposition of sanctions against a student speaker who, in nominating a fellow student for elective office during an assembly, referred to his candidate in terms of an elaborate sexually explicit metaphor). Schools do not violate the First Amendment every time they restrict student speech to certain categories. But under the Court's view, a school policy under which the student body president is to solemnize the graduation ceremony by giving a favorable introduction to the guest speaker would be facially unconstitutional. Solemnization "invites and encourages" prayer and the policy's content limitations [326] prohibit the student body president from giving a solemn, yet nonreligious, message like "commentary on United States foreign policy." See ante, at 306.

The policy at issue here may be applied in an unconstitutional manner, but it will be time enough to invalidate it if that is found to be the case. I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

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[1] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Christian Legal Society by Steffen N. Johnson, Stephen M. Shapiro, Michael W. McConnell, and Kimberlee W. Colby; for Liberty Counsel et al. by Mathew D. Staver and Jerry Falwell, Jr.; for the Northstar Legal Center by Jordan W. Lorence; for Spearman Independent School District et al. by Roger D. Hepworth; for the Texas Association of School Boards Legal Assistance Fund by David M. Feldman and Myra C. Schexnayder; for the Texas Justice Foundation et al. by Linda L. Schlueter; for Senator James M. Inhofe et al. by Barry C. Hodge; for Congressman Steve Largent et al. by Brett M. Kavanaugh; for Marian Ward et al. by Kelly J. Coghlan; and for Texas Public School Students et al. by John L. Carter.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Jewish Congress et al. by Walter E. Dellinger and Marc D. Stern; and for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs et al. by Derek H. Davis and Melissa Rogers.

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the Rutherford Institute by John W. Whitehead, Steven H. Aden, and James A. Hayes, Jr.; and for the Student Press Law Center by Richard A. Simpson and S. Mark Goodman.

[2] A decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals noted, that many District officials "apparently neither agreed with nor particularly respected." 168 F. 3d 806, 809,n. 1 (CA5 1999). About a month after the complaint was filed, the District Court entered an order that provided, in part: "[A]ny further attempt on the part of Districtor school administration, officials,counsellors,teachers, employees or servants of the School District,parents,students or anyone else, overtly or covertly to ferret out the identities of the Plaintiffs in this cause, by means of bogus petitions, questionnaires, individual interrogation, or downright `snooping', will cease immediately. ANYONE TAKING ANY ACTION ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, DURING SCHOOL HOURS, OR WITH SCHOOL RESOURCES OR APPROVAL FOR PURPOSES OF ATTEMPTING TO ELICIT THE NAMES OR IDENTITIES OF THE PLAINTIFFS IN THIS CAUSE OF ACTION, BY OR ON BEHALF OF ANY OF THESE INDIVIDUALS, WILL FACE THE HARSHEST POSSIBLE CONTEMPT SANCTIONS FROM THIS COURT, AND MAY ADDITIONALLY FACE CRIMINAL LIABILITY. The Court wants these proceedings addressed on their merits, and not on the basis of intimidation or harassment of the participants on either side." App. 34-35.

[3] At the 1994 graduation ceremony the senior class president delivered this invocation: "Please bow your heads. "Dear heavenly Father, thank you for allowing us to gather here safely tonight. We thank you for the wonderful year you have allowed us to spend together as students of Santa Fe. We thank you for our teachers who have devoted many hours to each of us. Thank you, Lord, for our parents and may each one receive the special blessing. We pray also for a blessing and guidance as each student moves forward in the future. Lord, bless this ceremony and give us all a safe journey home. In Jesus' name we pray." Id., at 19.

[4] For example, it prohibited school officials from endorsing or participating in the baccalaureate ceremony sponsored by the Santa Fe Ministerial Alliance, and ordered the District to establish policies to deal with "manifest First Amendment infractions of teachers, counsellors, or other District or school officials or personnel, such as ridiculing, berating or holding up for inappropriate scrutiny or examination the beliefs of any individual students. Similarly, the School District will establish or clarify existing procedures for excluding overt or covert sectarian and proselytizing religious teaching, such as the use of blatantly denominational religious terms in spelling lessons, denominational religious songs and poems in English or choir classes, denominational religious stories and parables in grammar lessons and the like, while at the same time allowing for frank and open discussion of moral, religious, and societal views and beliefs, which are non-denominational and non-judgmental." Id., at 34.

[5] The student giving the invocation thanked the Lord for keeping the class safe through 12 years of school and for gracing their lives with two special people and closed: "Lord, we ask that You keep Your hand upon us during this ceremony and to help us keep You in our hearts through the rest of our lives. In God's name we pray. Amen." Id., at 53. The student benediction was similar in content and closed: "Lord, we ask for Your protection as we depart to our next destination and watch over us as we go our separate ways. Grant each of us a safe trip and keep us secure throughout the night. In Your name we pray. Amen." Id., at 54.

[6] Despite these changes, the school did not conduct another election, under the October policy, to supersede the results of the August policy election.

[7] It provides:

"STUDENT ACTIVITIES:

"PRE-GAME CEREMONIES AT FOOTBALL GAMES

"The board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message to be delivered during the pre-game ceremonies of home varsity football games to solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition.

"Upon advice and direction of the high school principal, each spring, the high school student council shall conduct an election, by the high school student body, by secret ballot, to determine whether such a statement or invocation will be a part of the pre-game ceremonies and if so, shall elect a student, from a list of student volunteers, to deliver the statement or invocation. The student volunteer who is selected by his or her classmates may decide what message and/or invocation to deliver, consistent with the goals and purposes of this policy.

"If the District is enjoined by a court order from the enforcement of this policy, then and only then will the following policy automatically become the applicable policy of the school district.

"The board has chosen to permit students to deliver a brief invocation and/or message to be delivered during the pre-game ceremonies of home varsity football games to solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition.

"Upon advice and direction of the high school principal, each spring, the high school student council shall conduct an election, by the high school student body, by secret ballot, to determine whether such a message or invocation will be a part of the pre-game ceremonies and if so, shall elect a student, from a list of student volunteers, to deliver the statement or invocation. The student volunteer who is selected by his or her classmates may decide what statement or invocation to deliver, consistent with the goals and purposes of this policy. Any message and/or invocation delivered by a student must be nonsectarian and nonproselytizing." Id., at 104-105.

[8] "The graduation prayers at issue in the instant case, in contrast, are infused with explicit references to Jesus Christ and otherwise appeal to distinctively Christian beliefs. The Court accordingly finds that use of these prayers during graduation ceremonies, considered in light of the overall manner in which they were delivered, violated the Establishment Clause." App. to Pet. for Cert. E8.

[9] Id., at E8—E9.

[10] Because the dissent overlooks this case, it incorrectly assumes that a "prayer-only policy" at football games was permissible in the Fifth Circuit. See post, at 323 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.).

[11]

"There are in fact several secular reasons for allowing a brief, serious message before football games—some of which [the District] has listed in its policy. At sporting events, messages and/or invocations can promote, among other things, honest and fair play, clean competition, individual challenge to be one's best, importance of team work, and many more goals that the majority could conceive would it only pause to do so.

"Having again relinquished all editorial control, [the District] has created a limited public forum for the students to give brief statements or prayers concerning the value of those goals and the methods for achieving them." 168 F. 3d, at 835.

[12] "The majority fails to realize that what is at issue in this facial challenge to this school policy is the neutral accommodation of non-coerced, private, religious speech, which allows students, selected by students, to express their personal viewpoints. The state is not involved. The school board has neither scripted, supervised, endorsed, suggested, nor edited these personal viewpoints. Yet the majority imposes a judicial curse upon sectarian religious speech." Id., at 836.

[13] See, e.g., Brief for Petitioner 44-48, citing Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995) (limited public forum); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263 (1981) (limited public forum); Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753 (1995) (traditional public forum); Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384 (1993) (limited public forum). Although the District relies on these public forum cases, it does not actually argue that the pregame ceremony constitutes such a forum.

[14] A conclusion that the District had created a public forum would help shed light on whether the resulting speech is public or private, but we also note that we have never held the mere creation of a public forum shields the government entity from scrutiny under the Establishment Clause. See, e.g., Pinette, 515 U. S., at 772 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) ("I see no necessity to carve out . . . an exception to the endorsement test for the public forum context").

[15] The school's internal mail system in Perry was open to various private organizations such as "[l]ocal parochial schools, church groups, YMCA's, and Cub Scout units." 460 U. S., at 39, n. 2.

[16] If instead of a choice between an invocation and no pregame message, the first election determined whether a political speech should be made, and the second election determined whether the speaker should be a Democrat or a Republican, it would be rather clear that the public address system was being used to deliver a partisan message reflecting the viewpoint of the majority rather than a random statement by a private individual.

The fact that the District's policy provides for the election of the speaker only after the majority has voted on her message identifies an obvious distinction between this case and the typical election of a "student body president, or even a newly elected prom king or queen." Post, at 321.

[17] Brief for Petitioner 19 (quoting Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 248 (1990) (plurality opinion)).

[18] Tr. of Oral Arg. 7.

[19] The Chief Justice's hypothetical of the student body president asked by the school to introduce a guest speaker with a biography of her accomplishments, see post, at 325 (dissenting opinion), obviously would pose no problems under the Establishment Clause.

[20] See, e.g., Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1190 (1993) (defining "invocation" as "a prayer of entreaty that is usu[ally] a call for the divine presence and is offered at the beginning of a meeting or service of worship").

[21] See supra, at 297-298, and n. 4.

[22] Even if the plain language of the October policy were facially neutral, "the Establishment Clause forbids a State to hide behind the application of formally neutral criteria and remain studiously oblivious to the effects of its actions." Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S., at 777 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see also Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520, 534-535 (1993) (making the same point in the Free Exercise Clause context).

[23] "We think the Government's position that this interest suffices to force students to choose between compliance or forfeiture demonstrates fundamental inconsistency in its argumentation. It fails to acknowledge that what for many of Deborah's classmates and their parents was a spiritual imperative was for Daniel and Deborah Weisman religious conformance compelled by the State. While in some societies the wishes of the majority might prevail, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is addressed to this contingency and rejects the balance urged upon us. The Constitution forbids the State to exact religious conformity from a student as the price of attending her own high school graduation. This is the calculus the Constitution commands." Lee, 505 U. S., at 595-596.

[24] The Chief Justice accuses us of "essentially invalidat[ing] all student elections," see post, at 321. This is obvious hyperbole. We have concluded that the resulting religious message under this policy would be attributable to the school, not just the student, see supra, at 301-310. For this reason, we now hold only that the District's decision to allow the student majority to control whether students of minority views are subjected to a school-sponsored prayer violates the Establishment Clause.

[25] The Chief Justice contends that we have "misconstrue[d] the nature . . .[of] the policy as being an election on `prayer' and `religion,' " post, at 320. We therefore reiterate that the District has stipulated to the facts that the most recent election was held "to determine whether a student would deliver prayer at varsity football games," that the "students chose to allow a student to say a prayer at football games," and that a second election was then held "to determine which student would deliver the prayer. " App. 65-66 (emphases added). Furthermore, the policy was titled "Prayer at Football Games." Id., at 99 (emphasis added). Although the District has since eliminated the word "prayer" from the policy, it apparently viewed that change as sufficiently minor as to make holding a new election unnecessary.

[26] The Court rightly points out that in facial challenges in the Establishment Clause context, we have looked to Lemon `s three factors to "guid[e] [t]he general nature of our inquiry." Ante, at 314 (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 602 (1988)). In Bowen, we looked to Lemon as such a guide and determined that a federal grant program was not invalid on its face, noting that "[i]t has not been the Court's practice, in considering facial challenges to statutes of this kind, to strike them down in anticipation that particular applications may result in unconstitutional use of funds." 487 U. S., at 612 (internal quotation marks omitted). But here the Court, rather than looking to Lemon as a guide, applies Lemon `s factors stringently and ignores Bowen `s admonition that mere anticipation of unconstitutional applications does not warrant striking a policy on its face.

[27] The Court attempts to support its misinterpretation of the nature of the election process by noting that the district stipulated to facts about the most recent election. See ante, at 317, n. 24. Of course, the most recent election was conducted under the previous policy—a policy that required an elected student speaker to give a pregame invocation. See App. 65-66, 99-100. There has not been an election under the policy at issue here, which expressly allows the student speaker to give a message as opposed to an invocation.

[28] The Court's reliance on language regarding the student referendum in Board of Regents of Univ. of Wis. System v. Southworth, 529 U. S. 217 (2000), to support its conclusion with respect to the election process is misplaced. That case primarily concerned free speech, and, more particularly, mandated financial support of a public forum. But as stated above, if this case were in the "as applied" context and we were presented with the appropriate record, our language in Southworth could become more applicable. In fact, Southworth itself demonstrates the impropriety of making a decision with respect to the election process without a record of its operation. There we remanded in part for a determination of how the referendum functions. See id., at 235-236.

[29] The Court also determines that the use of the term "invocation" in the policy is an express endorsement of that type of message over all others. See ante, at 306-307. A less cynical view of the policy's text is that it permits many types of messages, including invocations. That a policy tolerates religion does not mean that it improperly endorses it. Indeed, as the majority reluctantly admits, the Free Exercise Clause mandates such tolerance. See ante, at 313 ("[N]othing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday"); see also Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 673 (1984) ("Nor does the Constitution require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any").

[30] Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38 (1985), is distinguishable on these grounds. There we struck down an Alabama statute that added an express reference to prayer to an existing statute providing a moment of silence for meditation. Id., at 59. Here the school district added a secular alternative to a policy that originally provided only for prayer. More importantly, in Wallace, there was "unrebutted evidence" that pointed to a wholly religious purpose, id., at 58, and Alabama "conceded in the courts below that the purpose of the statute was to make prayer part of daily classroom activity," id., at 77-78 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). There is no such evidence or concession here.