A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ban on the Chino Valley Unified school board’s years-long practice of mid-meeting prayer.

“The prayers frequently advanced religion in general and Christianity in particular,” judges M. Margaret McKeown, Kim McLane Wardlaw and Wiley Y. Daniel wrote in an unsigned decision released by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday, July 25.

“The prayer policy’s purpose is predominantly religious in violation of the Establishment Clause,” of the First Amendment, which prohibits a governmental establishment of religion, the judges determined.

Officially, the school board has been opening meetings with invocations since 2013. But prayer at meetings goes back to at least 2010, according to the 9th Circuit Court’s opinion. Over time, it expanded to include mid-meeting prayers, Bible readings and proselytizing.

In 2014, the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sued the school district, alleging “meetings resemble a church service more than a school board meeting.” Two parents and 20 anonymous district employees, residents and children were also among the plaintiffs.

On Wednesday, the 9th Circuit Court upheld the 2016 ruling by U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal, who found the board’s frequent religious expressions were “unconstitutional endorsements of religion in violation of plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights” and prevented board members Andrew Cruz, Irene Hernandez-Blair, James Na and Sylvia Orozco from “conducting, permitting or otherwise endorsing school-sponsored prayer in board meetings.”

“We were very happy to receive this victory,” said Rebecca Markert, legal director of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It’s a solid victory for state-church separation.”

A history of religious expression

Board Vice President Na is an active member of the Watchmen Ministry at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, according to his biography on the district website.

At one meeting, Na, then board president, urged “everyone who does not know Jesus Christ to go and find Him,” according to the 9th Circuit opinion.

Cruz regularly closed meetings with a Bible reading, in addition to the prayers used to open meetings, according to the original suit. At a July 2015 school board meeting, Cruz discussed his religious beliefs for 12 minutes during board members’ comments at the end of the meeting, a video posted to YouTube shows.

All this crossed the line, according to the 9th Circuit.

“This is not the sort of solemnizing and unifying prayer, directed at lawmakers themselves and conducted before an audience of mature adults free from coercive pressures to participate,” the court opinion reads in part. “These prayers typically take place before groups of schoolchildren whose attendance is not truly voluntary and whose relationship to school district officials, including the board, is not one of full parity.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation suit noted students are not just encouraged to attend board meetings, but are sometimes required to, including students whose discipline cases the board discusses during closed-door portions of its meetings.

“School board meetings and school board bodies are different, because of their relationship to the school district itself and the children that they serve,” Markert said Wednesday. “Courts uniformly have recognized that it’s important to protect children from religious proselytizing. Schools are just different.”

Robert Tyler, an attorney with the Murrieta-based firm of Tyler & Bursch, which represented the district in its appeal, called the decision over-broad, as it requires the school board to stop even members of the public from praying during the public comment period.

“The school board is going to have to have the police standing beside the podium in case someone starts a prayer,” Tyler said Wednesday. “Where does this stop? … This is a very dangerous ruling.”

What Chino Valley argued

The district’s case hinged on two Supreme Court decisions.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Town of Greece v. Galloway that local officials may open public meetings with prayers — even explicitly Christian ones — so long as the government agency does not discriminate against minority faiths when choosing who may offer a prayer and the prayer does not coerce participation from nonbelievers.

In another case in 1971, Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that legislation relating to religion must have a secular purpose, not have a primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion and must not result in “excessive government entanglement” with religion.

The 9th Circuit said Chino Valley Unified’s practices didn’t comply with either one.

“The audience and timing of the prayers, as well as the religious preaching at the board meetings, diverge from the legislative-prayer tradition,” the court’s decision reads in part. “Unlike a session of Congress or a state legislature, or a meeting of a town board, the Chino Valley board meetings function as extensions of the educational experience of the district’s public schools.”

Tyler scoffed at that.

“Kids, if they want to get some extra credit, they can go to a school board meeting,” he said. “But you know what? They go to city council meetings as well.”

He said students facing disciplinary hearings don’t have their cases heard open session when the prayers were taking place. Likewise, the board’s student member is free to leave the room during prayer.

What comes next

Markert said there’s little point in the school district filing any further appeals, as the Supreme Court turned down the chance to rule on a similar case out of the 5th Circuit last November.

“It makes sense, to me, for them to not continue to pursue this,” she said. “As it is, they’ve racked up lots of attorney’s fees.”

In 2016, Cruz, Na and Orzco were ordered to pay $202,971.70 to the Freedom From Religion Foundation for their attorney’s fees and other costs.

Tyler said his firm will meet with the board soon and discuss options, including filing for reconsideration in the 9th Circuit or petitioning the Supreme Court.

The board has already cut back on its prayer: In 2016, nine months after Bernal’s decision, the school board voted to limit prayer during meetings, six months before it appealed the judge’s decision.

Staff writer Sandra Emerson contributed to this story.