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Engel
v. Vitale
370
U.S. 421 (1962)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
Since
their inception in the nineteenth century, public schools
in most parts of the United States had sponsored prayers
and other devotional exercises. Once the Supreme Court had
applied the religion clause to the states, it was inevitable
that the Court would be asked to decide the constitutionality
of these state-sponsored religious activities. In fact,
in 1952, in Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U.S.
429, the Court in effect postponed consideration of this
issue when it held that a taxpayer had no standing to challenge
Bible reading in the public schools.
Ten
years later, in Engel v. Vitale, the Court held that
under the First Amendment a state may not sponsor prayers
in its schools. No ruling in this area of constitutional
law has provoked as much sustained public controversy.
The
New York State Board of Regents composed and recommended
for daily use in New York public schools a brief, non-denominational
prayer: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon
Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our
teachers and our Country." The officials justified the prayer
as a part of a child's moral and spiritual training. Student
participation was voluntary.
When
the Board of Education of New Hyde Park, New York, directed
its school principals to have the prayer recited daily,
several parents sued, challenging the state action as a
violation of the First Amendment. The New York courts were
satisfied that the prayer was not an establishment of religion
so long as the schools did not compel any student to join
in the prayer over his or his parents' objection. The Supreme
Court disagreed. Writing for the Court, Justice Hugo Black
said it was beside the point that students were not forced
to participate; what offended the First Amendment, he said,
was the fact that government had engaged in a religious
activity by writing a prayer.
Polls
showed that Engel and the related decision in 1963
in Abington School District v. Schempp, striking
down Bible readings in public schools (see Case 9), were
opposed by large majorities of the American people. Down
through the years there have been various proposals to amend
the Constitution so as to allow public school prayer and
other devotional exercises. None has succeeded. Nor has
the Court overruled these cases.
States
have, however, enacted laws providing for a moment of silence
during which public school students may pray. In 1985 the
Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of one such
law in Wallace v. Jaffree; see Case 21. To clarify
the circumstances in which public high school students may
gather for religious purposes, including prayers, Congress
in 1984 enacted the Equal Access Act, which provides student-led
religious groups the same right of access to school facilities
for their meetings as is enjoyed by student-led non-religious
groups. In 1990 the law was upheld against constitutional
challenge in Board of Education v. Mergens; see Case
24. The most recent addition to the law regarding school
prayer came in 1992, when the Court, in Lee v. Weisman,
struck down a public school's practice of having area clergy
deliver prayers at junior and senior high school graduation
ceremonies; see Case 25.
Engel
generated three opinions: Justice Black, architect of the
Court's establishment jurisprudence in Everson v. Board
of Education (1947), wrote for the Court, expressing
the views of five members; William O. Douglas also wrote
separately, concurring in the judgment; and Justice Potter
Stewart dissented. All three opinions are presented here.
Justices Felix Frankfurter and Byron White did not participate
in the case.
The
editorial responses to the decision reprinted here are from
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
the Washington Post, the (Washington) Evening
Star, Christianity and Crisis, and The New Republic.
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