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Supreme Court Case Research Paper

859 Words4 Pages

Ana Garcia
AP Government
Aby
Period 4
Supreme Court Case Paper
As Arden Specter, once put it “The First Amendment freedom of religion is as important today as when the Bill of Rights was first written.” (Specter) One of the most important and most brought up clauses in the Supreme Court case, is the FIrst Amendment, it holds the most important value of the United States, freedom. The ruling in Engel v Vitale forever changed the way the establishment clause of the First Amendment was interpreted. It solidified the right to keep religion completely separate from schools and the public. And from then on, protected students writes to not have a religion in school. In the late 1940s, post World War 2 United States found itself in a shaky state. …show more content…

In the year 1951 under president Truman, New York’s board of education approved a 22 word prayer to be recited every day in the public schools of New York, the prayer read “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.” (Engel) The prayer was created by the State Board of Regents, but quickly stirred up a lot of controversy as many parents felt their children’s rights were being violated. The separation of church and state is protected by the First Amendment (freedom of religion) that was made lawful to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment and having this prayer that was sponsored by the state of New York, every morning seemed to be a direct violation of that right. Although as stated before, this case wasn’t as clear cut because much of the public at the time supported encouraging religion because of the strong anti communist beliefs that many Americans …show more content…

The defendants stated that the prayer didn’t actually establish an official religion and therefore did not infringe on anyone’s religious rights. They also highlighted that the government makes other references to religion, that aren’t prosecuted as unconstitutional and therefor this prayer should be allowed too.
The decision was made by the Warren court in June of 1962. They ruled 6-1 in favor of Engel, stating that the prayer did indeed violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment and that having a prayer sponsored by the school was indeed

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