Brown v. Gilmore

Background

Virginia public school students and their parents challenged a state law, effective July 1, 2000, that requires a minute of silence at the start of each school day. They asked lower courts for emergency and permanent orders to stop the law’s enforcement. The District Court dismissed their challenge, and a divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. The applicants then filed for the Supreme Court to consider the case and sought an injunction while that review is pending.

Reasoning

A Justice of the Court considered whether to issue a rare emergency injunction under the Court’s limited emergency powers. He explained such relief is granted only in the most critical cases where the legal rights are “indisputably clear.” The Justice noted the Court of Appeals found a clear secular purpose — providing quiet reflection after high-profile school violence — and distinguished an earlier case where an Alabama law was struck down because it had no secular purpose. He also observed there was no evidence Virginia teachers led students in collective prayer and that many local divisions used a minute of silence without turning it into government-led prayer. The applicants’ constitutional claim therefore was not “indisputably clear,” and they had not shown the urgent need for the unusual relief sought.

Real world impact

The Justice denied the emergency request, so Virginia schools must continue to observe the minute of silence while the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case. This decision is procedural and leaves the underlying constitutional question for later review; it does not resolve the law’s ultimate constitutionality.