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Persuasive Essay: School Prayer In Public Schools

441 Words2 Pages

Tara Zarasvand
Professor Larry Steele
English Composition 1113
6 September 2015
School Prayer in Public Schools Whether school prayer should be allowed in public schools or not has been a controversial subject over the past few decades. As of right now school prayer is not enforced in public schools, but rather in religious private schools. However, students are not government officials and occasionally do display their faith throughout public schools. School prayer should not have a place in public schools because it violates the constitution, would not be just, and schools are not a place of prayer. In 1962, during the case of Engel v Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled that starting off school days with a prayer sponsored by school officials was in violation of the Establishment Clause. Justice …show more content…

It would be unfair to students as well as their parents. The majority of the United States’ children attend public schools, where they are surrounded by other students of different religious and philosophical beliefs. With the unbelievable diversity of American society, “it's important that our public schools respect the beliefs of everyone and protect parental rights” (Prayer and the Public Schools). Peer pressure is wide-spread within the country and with the diversity throughout our schools, religious influence from one student among another will not be difficult. Mixing prayer and religion in our public schools may construct barriers between children who have not before been exposed to religious differences. Public schools are not a place of prayer. Schools such as a private Catholic or Christian school do have a place for prayer, however. Schools are public while religion is private. Places for prayer are churches, temples, and mosques, not public school. I believe that school prayer should not have a place in public schools because it violates the Constitution, would be unfair, and schools are not a place of

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an you imagine yourself having to start your daily school routine with a prayer? This became a serious question to be taken up by the Supreme Court of the US, in November of 1951. Following an increase in in juvenile crime (many believe caused by the Korean War). The New York Board of Regents adopted a prayer to be recited in NY public schools (Dierenfield 67). The prayer was established because “...the regents believed that such a program would ensure that school children would acquire ‘respect for lawful authority and obedience to law’ ”

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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:

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Holding: Yes. In a 6-3 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court held that the Santa Fe Independent School District's policy allowing the representative of the student community to deliver overtly Christian prayer before home football games violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Reasoning: In its reasoning the Court considered Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 ruling, which decided that prayers during public high school events violate the Establishment

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Vitale. The case of Engel v. Vitale was brought up by a group of families from New Hyde park, New York, they were up against the voluntary prayer written by the state board to God, in other words, the study board wrote a Christian prayer up for public students who wants it. A group of parent under their leader Steven Engel(a jihadist) were not Christians and they believed this prayer contradicted their religion, they argued opening a public school with such prayer violates the clause of the first Amendment and the fourteenth amendment. At the end of this case, the court ruled government- written prayers may not be recited in public schools because it violates the first amendment. However these public school students were given a choice they were not forced to pray this prayer, moreover, this particular prayer was not sponsored by taxpayer’s money.

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In 1951, the following prayer was written that was intended to be recited each morning as part of the regents’ Statement of Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” Because the regents made the recitation of the prayer each day entirely optional to the school boards and the individual families of students, many New York school districts shunned the prayer because of their eclectic student bodies. Not only was the state religiously and ethnically diverse, but religious instruction in state schools was declared unconstitutional by the 1948 Supreme Court decision in the McCollum vs. Board of Education case. Because of the constantly increasing controversy about religious teaching in public schools, at least 90% of New York districts were not using the prayer by the late 1950s. Then, in 1958, five parents (of varying religions and ethnicities) of students within the district filed a lawsuit to stop the use of the prayer in their schools.

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