holding that school district violated Free Speech Clause of First Amendment in denying church access to school facilities after school hours solely because the film the church wished to show dealt with religion when school was open after hours to civic groups, and further holding that allowing the church access to the school did not violate the Establishment Clause
How later courts described this case
- holding that school district violated Free Speech Clause of First Amendment in denying church access to school facilities after school hours solely because the film the church wished to show dealt with religion when school was open after hours to civic groups, and further holding that allowing the church access to the school did not violate the Establishment Clause
- stating, in context of nonpublic forum where restriction on speech was held to be viewpoint-discriminatory, that “the interest of the State in avoiding an Establishment Clause violation may be a compelling one justifying an abridgement of free speech” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- holding that school district violated Free Speech Clause in denying church access to school solely because the film the church wished to show dealt with religion, and further holding that allowing the church-access to the school did not violate the Establishment Clause
- stating that lecture or film about child-rearing and family values from religious perspective was not "subject matter ... that the District has placed off limits to any and all speakers," when other speakers could discuss same topics from non-religious perspective
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Justice Kennedy,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Given the issues presented as well as the apparent unanimity of our conclusion that this overt, viewpoint-based discrimination contradicts the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and that there has been no substantial showing of a potential Establishment Clause violation, I agree with Justice Scalia that the Court’s citation of Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), is unsettling and unnecessary. The same can be said of the Court’s use of the phrase “endorsing religion,” see ante, at 395, which, as I have indicated elsewhere, cannot suffice as a rule of decision consistent with our precedents and our traditions in this part of our jurisprudence. See Allegheny County v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 655 (1989) (opinion concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part). With these observations, I concur in part and concur in the judgment.