The Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, 2005 WL 3071639 (S.D. N.Y. Nov. 16, 2005)
A New York federal district court has ruled that a school district's refusal to allow an outside religious group to use school facilities on Sundays for religious services and worship violates the group's First Amendment free speech rights. The court concluded that permitting the group to meet at school would neither advance nor inhibit religion in violation of the Establishment Clause principle of religious neutrality. However, it found the school district's policies of precluding religious groups from using school facilities for services and worship created excessive government entanglement with religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. In 1994 the Bronx Household of Faith (BHF), a Christian church, made a formal request to use a New York City public school for Sunday religious services and worship. The Board of Education of the City of New York (BOE) denied the request based on its policy prohibiting the rental of school property for the purpose of religious worship. After a federal district court dismissed BHF's suit to enjoin enforcement of the policy and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower court in
Bronx Household I, the U.S. Supreme Court decided
Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), in which the Court held that speech discussing otherwise permissible subjects cannot be excluded from a limited public forum because the subject is discussed from a religious viewpoint. BHF made a new request for access to a school building for purposes of Sunday worship and services. BOE again denied that request. When the new suit reached the Second Circuit, it concluded that it was bound by the Supreme Court's holding in
Good News. As a result, it found there was no meaningful difference between "the teaching of morals and character development from a [religious] viewpoint" at issue in
Good News and religious worship at issue in
Bronx Household II. BHF then made a third request for use of the school facilities that is an issue in the present case. The BOE, in an attempt to conform its policies to the holding of
Good News while continuing to bar the use of school property for religious worship or services, adopted a new policy that allowed after school use of facilities by groups like the Good News Clubs, but still prohibited the use of school facilities as a house of worship. The district court found, as had the courts in
Bronx Household I and
Bronx Household II, that the BOE's policies created a limited public forum. It pointed out that in a limited public forum the BOE could not impose restrictions on private speech that amount to viewpoint discrimination without running afoul of the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause. The district court found it could not reach a conclusion different than that reached in
Good News and
Bronx Household II that "[BHF] seek[s] to continue using the School to engage in activities that, while in part quintessentially religious, amount to the teaching of moral values from a religious viewpoint. [BOE's] discrimination against [BHF] on the basis of this religious viewpoint is, therefore, a violation of [BHF's] First Amendment rights." Applying the primary or principal effect test to determine if allowing BHF to hold services on school property would create an Establishment Clause violation, the district court concluded as had the Second Circuit in
Bronx Household II, "[t]he School Board does not have a valid Establishment Clause interest because the proposed meetings: (1) occur on Sunday mornings, during nonschool hours; (2) are not endorsed by the School District; (3) are not attended by any school employee; (4) are open to all members of the public; and (5) there is no evidence that any school children would be on the school premises on Sunday mornings or would attend the meetings." Turning to the excessive entanglement test, the district court found that the BOE's policy which requires it to "distinguish between "religious services" [previous policy] and "religious worship services" (Present SOP ยง 5.11) from the teaching of character and morals from a religious viewpoint as described in
Good News Club," created a recipe for excessive government entanglement with religion. Lastly, it concluded that the new policy failed because the activities at issue in the present case were not "mere religious worship divorced from any teaching of moral values."
The Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York, 2005 WL 3071639 (S.D. N.Y. Nov. 16, 2005)
[Link to full opinion][
Editor's Note: To view a summary of the Second Circuit's opinion in Bronx Household II
, access the link below.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York]