Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education v. Freiler
The Supreme Court declined to review a Louisiana school board's policy requiring teachers to read a disclaimer before lessons on evolution, leaving in place lower-court rulings that struck the disclaimer down as an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas, dissented from the denial, arguing the disclaimer merely encouraged critical thinking and did not amount to a religious endorsement, and urging the Court to abandon the legal test the lower courts used.
How it got here: A federal trial court and the Fifth Circuit both ruled the school board's evolution disclaimer unconstitutional; the school board asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling, which it declined to do.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A Louisiana school board required teachers to read a disclaimer before teaching evolution, stating the lesson was not meant to influence students away from the Biblical account of creation or other beliefs, and reminding students they could form their own opinions. Parents of students in the district sued, arguing the disclaimer amounted to the school district favoring religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.
The question before the Court
Could a Louisiana school board require teachers to read a disclaimer distancing the school from the theory of evolution before teaching it?
Why it matters
School districts elsewhere considering similar evolution disclaimers now have a Fifth Circuit ruling against them left undisturbed, discouraging comparable policies within that circuit. Because the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits, the constitutionality of such disclaimers outside the Fifth Circuit remains legally unsettled, and the debate over how courts should evaluate religion-related school policies continues.
What changes now
Because the Supreme Court denied review, the Fifth Circuit's ruling striking down the disclaimer stands, and the school board may not use it going forward within that circuit. This is not a nationwide merits ruling, so schools in other circuits are not directly bound by it. The dissenters' call to discard the Lemon test and reconsider the issue went unaddressed by the full Court.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the disclaimer was actually constitutional. It simply declined to review the Fifth Circuit's decision, so that court's reasoning binds only that circuit and leaves the broader question of evolution disclaimers unresolved nationally.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Scalia
“Far from advancing religion, the “principal or primary effect” of the disclaimer at issue here is merely to advance freedom of thought.”Scalia's central objection to the Fifth Circuit's ruling against the evolution disclaimer.
Justice Scalia argued the Court should have granted review, both to reconsider the widely criticized Lemon test and because the Fifth Circuit misapplied it here. He said the disclaimer only reminded students of their freedom to form their own views and mentioned the Biblical account merely as an illustrative example, not an endorsement, so it should not have been struck down.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Fifth Circuit evaluated the disclaimer using the three-part Lemon test, which asks whether a government policy has a genuine non-religious purpose, whether its main effect advances or holds back religion, and whether it excessively entangles government with religious institutions.
- The appeals court found the disclaimer had a permissible secular purpose — avoiding the appearance that the school endorsed evolution as the only truth and reducing offense to students and parents — so it passed the first part of the test.
- On the second part of the test, the court concluded the disclaimer's real-world effect was to protect one particular religious viewpoint, the Biblical account of creation, because of how the disclaimer was worded and structured.
- Because the disclaimer failed that effects-based part of the test, the Fifth Circuit ruled it violated the Establishment Clause, and it declined to revisit that conclusion when the school board sought rehearing.
- The Supreme Court denied the school board's request to review that ruling, leaving the Fifth Circuit's decision as the final word in that circuit without the full Court weighing in on the underlying legal question.