## Facts

- Parents and taxpayers challenged the use of 44 public-school textbooks in Mobile County, Alabama, covering subjects such as social studies, history, and home economics.
- Plaintiffs alleged the textbooks promoted “secular humanism” as a religion and thereby inhibited theistic religions.
- The district court accepted the premise that secular humanism is a religion and found the books promoted it while inhibiting theism, enjoining further use of the textbooks.
- State education officials, the governor, and others appealed; intervenors and multiple amici supported the textbooks.
- The challenged materials included value-oriented content (e.g., tolerance, self-respect, and decision-making) and treatments of history and culture that plaintiffs claimed omitted or minimized religious influences.

## Issues

1. Whether the use of the challenged textbooks violated the Establishment Clause by advancing secular humanism (treated as a “religion” for purposes of the claim).
2. Whether the textbooks violated the Establishment Clause by inhibiting theistic religions through omission or marginalization of religious content in the curriculum.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court.
- The court assumed without deciding that secular humanism could be considered a religion for Establishment Clause analysis and still found no violation.
- The court held the textbooks were adopted for a secular educational purpose.
- The court held the textbooks’ primary effect was not to advance secular humanism or disapprove theistic religions.
- The court ordered the injunction dissolved and remanded with directions to terminate the litigation.

## Legal Principles

- Government action in public-school curriculum is evaluated under Establishment Clause purpose-and-effect analysis; a secular educational purpose and a primarily neutral effect generally satisfy constitutional requirements.
- A curriculum’s inclusion of secular values that may overlap with a belief system does not, without more, constitute unconstitutional advancement of that system as religion.
- Omission or limited discussion of religion in secular instructional materials does not itself amount to unconstitutional hostility toward religion and does not require “equal time” for religious viewpoints.
- Courts should avoid substituting judicial preferences for pedagogical judgments in textbook selection absent a clear religious purpose or a primary effect of endorsing or disapproving religion.
- A court may assume arguendo that a challenged belief system qualifies as “religion” and still uphold state action when the action’s purpose and primary effect are secular and neutral.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that the challenged textbooks, selected for secular educational reasons, neither primarily advanced a religion nor inhibited theistic belief, and it dissolved the injunction and ended the case.


Smith v. Bd. of Sch. Comm’rs of Mobile Cnty., 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987)