## Facts

- A Texas public school district adopted “Resolution 1” for high school graduation ceremonies.
- The policy permitted (but did not require) the senior class, by majority vote, to decide whether an invocation would be included at graduation.
- If the class voted to include an invocation, seniors selected student volunteers to deliver it.
- Any invocation had to be “nonsectarian” and “nonproselytizing,” and school officials could review the text to ensure compliance with those limits.
- Students and parents challenged the policy as an unconstitutional injection of prayer into a public school function under the Establishment Clause.

## Issues

1. Whether a public school district violates the Establishment Clause by permitting graduating seniors, by majority vote, to include a student-delivered, nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocation at graduation.
2. Whether the policy remained constitutional after the Supreme Court’s decision in *Lee v. Weisman*, which invalidated a school-directed clergy prayer at graduation.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court and upheld Resolution 1.
- On remand following Supreme Court vacatur, the court reaffirmed its earlier conclusion that the policy did not violate the Establishment Clause.
- The court distinguished *Lee* because the invocation here was student-delivered and student-selected, with the decision to include it made by the senior class rather than school officials.
- Rehearing and rehearing en banc were denied.

## Legal Principles

- A graduation-invocation policy may satisfy the *Lemon* test when it has a secular purpose (solemnizing graduation), its primary effect is not to advance or endorse religion, and it avoids excessive entanglement.
- Governmental “coercion” concerns are greater when school officials orchestrate the religious exercise (including selecting the prayer-giver), as in a clergy-led, school-directed invocation.
- A policy framed as student-initiated—where students decide by vote whether to include an invocation and students deliver it—was treated as reducing direct state involvement compared to official sponsorship.
- Limiting any invocation to nonsectarian and nonproselytizing content, with administrative review confined to enforcing those constraints, was viewed as a permissible attempt to prevent sectarian endorsement and reduce divisiveness.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that a school district may allow graduating seniors, through a majority vote, to include a student-led, nonsectarian, nonproselytizing invocation at graduation, and that this student-selection structure and content limits distinguished the policy from the coercive, school-directed graduation prayer invalidated in *Lee v. Weisman*.


Jones v. Clear Creek Indep. Sch. Dist., 977 F.2d 963 (5th Cir. 1992)