4. Engel v. Vitale
In the case, Engel was sueing Vitale over the grounds that there should be no teacher led prayer in public school.
My oipinion is that if someone wants to pray, they should be able to.
I think that a time of silence/meditation is a good idea because it does not imply any specific religion or any religion at all.
Engel v. Vitale (1962) a. Constitutional Question: Did having a prayer at the start of a school day violate the clause of religion as stated in the First Amendment? b. Background Information: Engel was the parent of a student who was under the school in New York State who was in desire of a nondenominational prayer. The law states that you may take absence from it if it was objectionable. As a parent, he sued of his child.
The Supreme Court case of Engel v. Vitale’s decision was based on the establishment clause. The case of Engel v. Vitale struck down state organized prayer in school. The prayer had government endorsement and was thus considered unconstitutional. The Supreme Court case of Oregon v. Smith used the free exercise clause the basis of their decision.
The Tinker V. Des Moines had a huge impact on history and school districts. Des Moines was community school district. The Tinker’s were a family that attended it. There were two children from the Tinker family that attended Des Moines and they are John F. Tinker and his sister Mary B. Tinker. They were suspended for protesting.
Engel v. Vitale The Board of Regents for the state of New York authorized the students to say a volutary prayer and the pledge of allegience at the beginning of each day. The parents of the pupils disagreed to this because it is violating Ammendment 1. The parents sued the schools because it violated the freedom of religion granted to them. The case was decided in Warren court in 1962, the petitoner was Steven I. Engel, et al.
Notаbly absent from the opinion, as it was in Plessy, is any citаtion to a Supreme Court cаse that considered whether the prаctice of segregating schools was a violation of the Fourteenth Аmendment. It was an open question for the Court. The Court аdmitted that the precedent to which it cited involved discriminаtion between whites and blacks rаther thаn other rаces. However, the Court found no аppreciable difference here—"the decision is within the discretion of the state in regulating its public schools, and does not conflict with the Fourteenth Аmendment."
At first, Engel’s case was refused by Justice Bernard S. Meyer because he concluded that school prayer did not interfere with the public’s rights under the First Amendment. Later with the time, Engel did not give up on the case and took it to the Supreme Court instead of the New York Court of Appeals where it was reviewed for the second time. Finally, on June 25, 1962, the final decision was given and it declared the law unconstitutional (“Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale” 1). The opinion of the court was 6-1 in were six of them were concurrence and one of them dissented (Skelton 1). The author of the people who were concurrence was William Orville Douglas.
The Court declined his argument. The Court determined that the segregated schools were considerably equal enough under the Plessy doctrine. It wasn 't until the mid twentieth century when Brown v Board of Education came into play that Plessy’s argument was given the okay by the constitution. The Court tried to use Plessy v. Ferguson to deny the argument that Oliver Brown was giving during the Brown v. Board of Education case. Once the Courts decided that separating children by race could have an overall affect on the black children 's ability to learn.
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
Gisselle Zepeda Mr. Lievre American Government Credit 5 Board of Education of Westside Community Schools Versus Mergens The Equal Access Act upheld by the Supreme Court in Board of Education v. Mergens, 1990, requires public secondary schools to allow access to religiously based student groups on the same basis as other student clubs. The school administration denied a group of students their right to create a Christian after school club. The students intended for their club to have just the same privileges and club meetings as all other after school clubs. The schools excuse being that it lacked faculty support which led to the school and district being sued by the students.
The first major case brought to notice was West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Before this court decision, it was common for children to be expelled from school for not comply with the pledge. The Board of education wanted the pledge to become a regular part of public schooling and refusing to obey was an Act of insubordination which ended in expulsion. If the child still did not conform, they would be considered unlawfully
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,
Some states created groups that encouraged patriotism to encourage the U.S soldiers fighting against communism in Korea and had began challenging the separation of church and state. Engle v. Vitale was a landmark Supreme Court case because it showed how religion could not be enforced in schools and how 1st Amendment rights could not be taken away. In 1951 the New York board of education approved a prayer that was recited every morning in New York’s public schools.
On June 25, 1962, a Supreme Court case, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, was decided. The lawsuit was brought to the United States Supreme Court by parents (of students who attended schools in the Herricks School District) who complained that a nondenominational prayer instituted by the New York Board of Regents in their district was unconstitutional. The parents argued that the prayer, although optional, violated their First Amendment Rights. When the 6-1 (two justices did not vote) decision was made, it was ruled that voluntary prayer in public schools violates the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. One concurring opinion was given, and the single judge that did not vote the same as the rest provided
Prayer in Public Although prayer in public is traditional, it doesn't abide by the constitution. School prayer has remained a subject in the United States throughout the 20th Century. Engel v. Vitale came around in which school prayer was in a lot of ways forbidden. However, with the passage of the Equal Access Act in 1984, some forms of school prayer were again allowed. The Department of Education now issues a guide to help school administrators crack down on congressional laws and Supreme Court decisions concerning school prayer.
This court case I find crucial to me personally because it shows that no matter what your age, social standing, or political affiliations you cannot be ordered to repress your personal beliefs if they are not hurting anybody. Court cases such as these would not have the same outcome if it was the state fighting against the national