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Question
At 1:15 p.m. on Friday, August 15, 2013, a small tornado touched down just outside Springfield, Minnesota. The tornado caused substantial property damage, injured scores of people, and resulted in ten fatalities. The following Sunday, Adrian Peterson, a local high school teacher, tweeted: "Every day at 1:15 p.m., until the town is fully recovered, everyone in Springfield should tweet #prayingforthevictims."In the past, Peterson had used Twitter extensively to communicate with students about their assignments and other school announcements. As a result, many of Peterson's students follow him on Twitter. At 1:15 p.m. on Monday Peterson and fifteen of his students tweeted "#prayingforthevictims." That afternoon, the Springfield High School Morning Prayer Group (MPG), an official school student group, launched an Internet campaign to convince other students to participate in the daily Twitter prayers. Each day that week, at the specified time, an increasing number of high school students tweeted "#prayingforthevictims."
In addition, MPG collaborated with the Muslim Student Association, the Mormon Faith Club, the Jewish Student Union, and the Springfield High Humanists to organize an official prayer event to be held one -week after the day of the tornado. The event called for all students to dress in black and to simultaneously stop what they are doing at 1:15 p.m., take a moment of silence, bow their heads, and tweet "#prayingforthevictims." Peterson, who had been re-tweeting that message all week, participated in the silent tweet-prayer but did not assist in coordinating it. The school's official Twitter feed also used the "prayingforthevictims" hashtag on Friday, but the school administration was similarly uninvolved in the event planning.
Kevin Love, an 18 eighteen-year-old senior at Springfield High and an outspoken atheist, did not participate in any of the Twitter prayers. He filed suit against Peterson and the school in federal district court, claiming the defendants' participation in, and support of, the Twitter prayers violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. He asked the court to enjoin the school and its teachers from sending any more religiously motivated tweets. He also asked the court to require that the school institute a policy banning the use of social networking sites during school hours by students for religious purposes. The district court ruled for Love, and the Eighth Circuit Court affirmed that decision. Peterson and the school appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the tweets were nonsectarian and completely voluntary, and that the tweets sent by Peterson and the school did not amount to an endorsement of religion. They further argued that the injunction would prohibit the teachers' and students' free exercise of religion and freedom of speech in violation of the First Amendment.
You are the "swing" justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for this case. Four justices side with the school and Peterson; four others want to rule for Love. Your vote, therefore, will make the majority in either direction, and you are designated to write the majority opinion. Your goal is to craft a plausible, persuasive, and realistic majority opinion in this case. Be sure to cite cases from class to support your position. There is no right answer, but all your arguments must be logical and supported with case law. Be specific about what actions are or are not constitutional.