ACLU v. Schundler

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ACLU v. Schundler (1999) is a United States federal case establishing standards for a government-sponsored holiday display to contain religious symbols. It was decided by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on February 16, 1999.

In its decision, which relied heavily on the earlier case County of Allegheny v. ACLU, the court held that a holiday display consisting entirely of religiously-themed materials (in this case, a nativity scene, menorah and Christmas tree) violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as an official endorsement of religion. The decision also held that religious symbols were permissible if balanced in a non-religious context.

The majority opinion of the court was written by Circuit Judge Samuel Alito, who was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court on October 31, 2005. Its introduction states:

This appeal concerns the constitutionality of two Jersey City "holiday" displays. The first, which featured a menorah and a Christmas tree, was annually placed in front of City Hall for several decades. In 1995, the District Court permanently enjoined the City from continuing the practice of erecting this or any substantially similar display, see ACLU of N.J. v. Schundler, 931 F.Supp. 1180 (D.N.J. 1995), and a prior panel of our court affirmed that decision. ACLU of N.J. v. Schundler, 104 F.3d 1435, 1444-50 (1997). Jersey City subsequently moved for relief from that order under Rule 60 (b)(5) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, contending that the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 117 S. Ct. 1997 (1997), had undermined the panel's reasoning. The District Court denied this motion, and we now affirm that decision.

Jersey City also challenges the District Court's most recent decision regarding a modified holiday display that the City put up after the original display was enjoined. The modified display contained not only a creche, a menorah, and Christmas tree, but also large plastic figures of Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman, a red sled, and Kwanzaa symbols on the tree. In addition, the display contained two signs stating that the display was one of a series of displays put up by the City throughout the year to celebrate its residents' cultural and ethnic diversity. We find this modified display to be indistinguishable in any constitutionally significant respect from the displays upheld by the Supreme Court in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), and County of Allegheny v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989) (hereinafter "Allegheny County"), and we therefore hold that Jersey City's modified display is likewise constitutional.