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Engel V. Vitale: Prayer In The Public School

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Engel v. Vitale: Prayer in the Public Schools is a book written by Julia C. Loren. Loren’s main purpose for writing this book is to inform us about the history of the Engel v. Vitale trial, an important trial which determined that prayer was not acceptable in the public schools quote as the book says the “In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down one of its most controversial decisions of the twentieth century.” In this book, Loren was not bias towards either Engel’s or Vitale’s side of the case as she did not appear to be very fond of one particular side and gave information regarding both sides of the case. With that being said, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history or even the Engel v. Vitale case itself because the author was very straightforward in telling about both sides of the case without leaving anything out. Engel v. Vitale: …show more content…

Throughout the book, the group of parents’ attempts at going against the Regents Prayer in court was not very successful. The group of parents constantly went to courts, but they also constantly lost their cases in court. Having finally grown tired of losing their cases in numerous courts against the Regents Prayer, Steven Engel, one of the parents against the Regents Prayer, hired a lawyer to take the group’s case to the Supreme Court as the quote “After the New Hyde Park families petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case, they waited anxiously for news.”

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The issue in this case was whether school-sponsored nondenominational prayer in public schools violates the Establishment clause of the first amendment (Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale, n.d.). This case dealt with a New York state law that had required public schools to open each day with the Pledge of Allegiance and a nondenominational prayer in which the students recognized their dependence upon God (Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale, n.d.). This law had also allowed students to absent themselves from this activity if they found that it was objectionable. There was a parent that sued the school on behalf of their child. Their argument was that the law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as made applicable

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Taking place in 1962, Engel v. Vitale was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that raised the issue of school-sponsored prayer in public schools. Steven Engel, a New York parent, along with a group of other parents, was completely against any sort of prayer, whether voluntary or not, in public schools. Engel, a person of Jewish faith, and his group were supported by various Jewish organizations in their fight against the New Hyde Park school board. William Vitale, the president of this school board, was supported by twenty-two states through an amicus curiae brief. The case spurred from Vitale and other parents’ concerns with the fact that every day, after reciting the pledge of allegiance, students of New York State schools were given the option to recite a prayer,

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