Lee v. Weisman
E36571
Lee v. Weisman is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Lee v. Weisman canonical | 12 |
| Lee v. Weisman (1992) U.S. Supreme Court decision | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T252982 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lee v. Weisman Context triple: [Establishment Clause, keyCase, Lee v. Weisman]
-
A.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case that established students do not lose their First Amendment free speech rights at school, so long as their expression does not substantially disrupt the educational environment.
-
B.
Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education is a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to the states and articulated the modern “wall of separation between church and state” doctrine.
-
C.
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the "Lemon test" for determining whether government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
D.
Lynch v. Donnelly
Lynch v. Donnelly is a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the inclusion of a nativity scene in a city’s Christmas display and helped shape modern Establishment Clause analysis of government endorsement of religion.
-
E.
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Wisconsin v. Yoder is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that held compulsory school attendance laws could not be applied in a way that violated Amish parents’ religious freedom.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lee v. Weisman Target entity description: Lee v. Weisman is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
-
A.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District is a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case that established students do not lose their First Amendment free speech rights at school, so long as their expression does not substantially disrupt the educational environment.
-
B.
Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education is a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to the states and articulated the modern “wall of separation between church and state” doctrine.
-
C.
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the "Lemon test" for determining whether government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
D.
Lynch v. Donnelly
Lynch v. Donnelly is a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the inclusion of a nativity scene in a city’s Christmas display and helped shape modern Establishment Clause analysis of government endorsement of religion.
-
E.
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Wisconsin v. Yoder is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that held compulsory school attendance laws could not be applied in a way that violated Amish parents’ religious freedom.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
1992 court decision
ⓘ
Establishment Clause case ⓘ First Amendment case ⓘ United States Supreme Court case ⓘ |
| arguedDate | 1991-11-06 ⓘ |
| citation | 505 U.S. 577 ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
David H. Souter
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ John Paul Stevens ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision |
Establishment Clause
ⓘ
First Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1992-06-24 ⓘ |
| dissentBy | Antonin Scalia ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 90-1014 ⓘ |
| doctrine | prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in public schools ⓘ |
| fullCaseName | Robert E. Lee, Individually and as Principal of Nathan Bishop Middle School, et al. v. Daniel Weisman, et al. ⓘ |
| holding |
Clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
ⓘ
Including state-sponsored, clergy-delivered prayers in public school graduation ceremonies is unconstitutional. ⓘ |
| impact | Limited the role of religious exercises in public school-sponsored events. ⓘ |
| issue | Whether including clergy-led prayer in a public school graduation ceremony violates the Establishment Clause. ⓘ |
| joinedDissent |
Byron R. White
ⓘ
Clarence Thomas ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| joinedMajority |
David H. Souter
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ John Paul Stevens ⓘ Sandra Day O'Connor ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
|
| jurisdiction | United States federal law ⓘ |
| languageOfOpinion | English ⓘ |
| legalTestApplied | coercion test ⓘ |
| locationOfDispute |
Providence, Rhode Island
ⓘ
linked to:
Providence
|
| lowerCourtCitation | 908 F.2d 1090 (1st Cir. 1990) ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Anthony M. Kennedy ⓘ |
| originatingCourt | United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ⓘ |
| petitioner | Robert E. Lee ⓘ |
| precedentFor | cases challenging religious activities at public school events ⓘ |
| relatedTopic |
school graduation ceremonies
ⓘ
separation of church and state in the United States ⓘ |
| respondent | Daniel Weisman ⓘ |
| result | Judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed. ⓘ |
| subjectMatter |
religion in public schools
ⓘ
school prayer ⓘ |
| typeOfPrayerChallenged | nonsectarian, clergy-delivered invocation and benediction at graduation ⓘ |
| yearDecided | 1992 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Lee v. Weisman Description of subject: Lee v. Weisman is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
Referenced by (13)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Daniel Weisman
linked to: Lee v. Weisman
subject linked to:
Providence, Rhode Island public school system
subject linked to:
Providence, Rhode Island public school system
subject linked to:
Providence, Rhode Island (location of the school involved in Lee v. Weisman)