Does a pink, artificial Christmas tree with secular ornaments, displayed in a public school classroom for the holiday season, communicate the government’s endorsement of a particular religion?
That’s the legal question at the heart of the debate over whether Bangor High School Principal Paul Butler was in the right last week when he asked math teacher Catherine Gordon to remove just such a decoration from her classroom. (On Tuesday, Butler allowed the tree to return to Gordon’s classroom.)
The Supreme Court has considered a number of questions concerning the appropriateness of publicly sponsored holiday displays in the past three decades. The highest court also has considered whether it’s legal to permanently display religious symbols on public property.
The answer on whether public holiday displays are appropriate isn’t always clear cut, but cases such as Gordon’s are. Her 32-inch, artificial Christmas tree is clearly allowed under the First Amendment, it’s recognized as a secular symbol of the holiday season and Butler was wrong to ask her to remove it.
There’s an extreme for what’s surely not allowed on public property: Permanent religious displays that clearly imply the government’s endorsement of a particular faith. The Supreme Court settled that issue in 1980, when the justices overturned a Kentucky state law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. The display had no “secular legislative purpose,” the justices found, such as a lesson on religious faiths and their role in society. The requirement was “plainly religious in nature” and not allowed under the First Amendment.
Four years later, the Supreme Court weighed in on a Rhode Island city’s seasonal, municipally sponsored holiday display that featured a number of classic holiday season symbols — a Christmas tree, reindeer and Santa Claus — as well as a creche.
The court found Pawtucket was within its rights, despite the religious nature of the creche, because it could acknowledge the historical role of religion in U.S. history without endorsing a specific faith. In ruling on that case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote an opinion that has proven most pivotal over time in settling questions over the appropriateness of public religious displays. O’Connor established a test of sorts that judges could apply to public holiday displays to determine whether they were constitutional.
The key question for O’Connor was whether someone could reasonably interpret the display, taken as a whole — including its location and whether it’s permanent or temporary — as the government’s endorsement of a religion. That means a government-sponsored, publicly displayed creche isn’t always permissible, and it’s not always impermissible. It depends on the context. (In 1989, O’Connor found a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Christmas display in a county courthouse that featured a creche unconstitutional in part because it also featured a clearly religious banner that read: “Glory to God in the Highest.”)
Applying O’Connor’s test to Gordon’s Christmas tree, the answer becomes rather clear. Did her display of a pink, artificial tree for the week leading up to Christmas convey her endorsement of a particular faith?
The tree was only to remain in Gordon’s classroom temporarily, meaning it would never become a permanent religious fixture. The tree featured no Christmas ornaments — only Hello Kitty decorations. And it imparted no verbal Christmas message. Plus, in that same 1989 case in which O’Connor determined an overtly religious display with a creche to be in violation of the first amendment, she and other justices concluded that the holiday season had “attained a secular status in our society,” with the Christmas tree as the season’s “preeminent secular symbol.”
Of course, school administrators face the daunting challenge of balancing education, the law, an acknowledgement of the holiday season and ensuring all students, regardless of religious background, find school a comfortable and welcoming place.
In Gordon’s case at Bangor High School, the removal request was better suited to a permanent display of the Ten Commandments than a weeklong display of a pink tree meant to bring in the holiday cheer.