Abstract
I. INTRODUCTION In Lee v. Weisman, 1 the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the Providence, Rhode Island school committee's practice of allowing school principals to invite clergy to give nondenominational invocations and benedictions at graduation and promotion exercises at the Providence public schools. Surprising a good many, the Court rejected the school committee's position -- supported by the U.S. Department of Justice as amicus curiae -- that such prayers do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Court also declined "the invitation of [the school committee] and amicus the United States to reconsider [its] decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman. " 2 Lemon, of course, was the case that announced the much-maligned three-part " Lemon test" for assessing a statute's constitutionality under the Establishment Clause. 3 I suppose law professors should be reluctant to admit such things, but a colleague and I had placed a wager on the fate of the Lemon test in Weisman. 4 She insisted that the Court would repudiate Lemon. The votes were there, she said, the justices were itching to overrule Lemon, and the school district, backed by the Solicitor General, had squarely asked for such a ruling as the primary basis on which it was seeking reversal. I predicted that the Court would not scrap Lemon, at least not in the Weisman case. The "coercion test" proposed by the school district and the Solicitor General as the replacement for Lemon might not get the school district as ...