W. Joseph Hatley, Monday, May 24, 2010 | Filed under: First Amendment
There was a lot of media hoopla about last month's Supreme Court
decision involving the display of crosses in the Mojave Desert. Contrary to those reports though, the decision does not open the door to the wholesale erection of religious symbols on government property.
The case turned on the fact that by the time it reached the Supreme Court, the federal government no longer owned the land where the crosses had been placed. After a lower court had ordered the government to remove the crosses, Congress passed a special law requiring the government to swap that property, giving it to the VFW, which had originally erected the crosses in 1934 as a World War I monument. In exchange, the federal government was given some nearby land donated by a private citizen.
The Supreme Court ruled that since the property was no longer owned by the government, there was no way to conclude that the crosses were "government speech," nor an endorsement by the government of a particular religion.
This decision does not, therefore, really change the way school districts must analyze efforts to place religious symbols on school grounds. It is still something schools should shy away from, and this case is a lesson that high profile, contentious policies can't be based on how the media or pundits portray the law.