The Catholic Lawyer

Shh! State Legislators Bite Your Tongues: Semantics Dictates the Constitutionality of Public School “Moment of Silence” Statutes

By: Elizabeth Anne Walsh

The author examines the use of the three-prong Lemon Test in Brown v. Gilmore,
258 F.3d 265 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 996 (2001), and in six other moment-
of-silence statute cases. She argues that since the Test has produced such disparate results its use should be abandoned for moment-of-silence statutes and maintains that “A moment of silence in which a student chooses to pray has not unconstitutionally established prayer in the schools.”