Civil Liberties: Case Study

Town of Greece, New York v. Susan Galloway was a Supreme Court case that posed the question of whether or not the town of Greece should be allowed to open their board meetings with voluntary prayer that was almost always Christian prayer. The defendant in this case was the town of Greece, which is located in the state of New York and has a population of 94,000 people (opinion p.1). In 1999, under new leadership, the town of Greece made the transition from opening each town board meeting with a moment of silence to opening with a prayer (opinion p.1). The opinion states that the prayer was supposed to, “place town members in a solemn and deliberative state of mind, invoke divine guidance in town affairs, and follow a tradition practiced by Congress and dozens of other state legislatures (opinion p.2).” The prayer was given each month by an unpaid volunteer clergyman. After this person gave the prayer they were then named the “chaplain for the month” (opinion p.2). Anyone could volunteer to be a chaplain no matter what religion they practiced or even if they practiced no religion at all (opinion p.2). However, almost every single chaplain was Christian (opinion p.2). One very important fact about the case is that the town of Greece did not provide any guidelines or suggestions about what the prayers should include. In fact, they didn’t even read the prayers beforehand because they believed that would be impeding the chaplains’ first amendment right (opinion p.2). This meant

The case of Wallace v. Jaffree calls into question the constitutionality of an Alabama statute that authorized teachers to lead a one-minute period of silence for “meditation or voluntary” prayer in all public schools. Ishmael Jaffree, the parent of three students in the Mobile County Public School system filed a complaint that two of his three children had been “subjected to various acts of religious indoctrination,” as a result of Alabama statute 16-1-20.1 and asked for an injunction prohibiting Mobile County schools from “maintaining or allowing the maintenance of regular religious prayer services.” The purpose of Jaffree’s complaint was to prohibit the devotional services occurring in his children’s school and the consequent mockery of his children that occurred when they refused to recite the prayers to “Almighty God” (Stevens, 40). This type of law in Alabama public schools was not the first of its kind. Prior to statute 6-11-20.1, Alabama passed law 16-1-20 authorizing one minute of silence in public schools for meditation. After the authorization of statute 16-1-20.1 came 16-1-20.2, which allowed teachers to lead “willing students” in a prayer (Stevens, 40).

The Town of Greece County Commission desires to have a clergy-led prayer at the beginning of each meeting and has requested that the managing attorney and legal counsel for the county commission provide her views on the wisdom of opening each monthly meeting with a prayer and whether such prayers are permitted within the realms of the U.S. Constitution. The managing attorney has requested a written analysis of the Supreme Court case Town of Greece v. Galloway.

Supreme Court, my office cannot shrink from a case or stand mute because the case is controversial. It’s important for Indiana to weigh in on the upcoming Supreme Court case of Galloway v. the Town of Greece, New York, because the Indiana House of Representatives was subjected to a similar lawsuit in recent years. Municipal and state officials face uncertainty when deciding whether to start legislative meetings with prayer, and the Supreme Court could bring an end to that confusion.

Answer: Discrimination, right before the Revolutionary War, was raised to the highest tide in America’s societies. Many efforts were tried to reduce or alleviate the tense situation but ended up with failure, and this is the origin of two most important concepts in America which are Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Even though Civil Rights and Civil Liberties are both under the Constitution, they are different. Civil Rights are duties of government to ensure the equal treatment for everyone not regarding to their race, gender, age, or religious… while Civil Liberties are people’s freedoms to protect themselves from governmental action like unreasonable searches and seizures.

The American education system is one of the main places of controversy for the Separation of Church and State. Almost every child in the United States attends some type of school, many of them public systems. In such a school setting, these children are often exposed to the beliefs of their teachers and administrators, as well as their own classmates. In Greece, New York, ever since 1999, the town board has begun their monthly gatherings with prayer. Rev. Lou Sirianni begins his gathering by stating: "Be thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly," the prayer ended, "All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior" (Wolf 1). Recently in 2007, two residents who regularly attended board meetings, Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, complained that the prayers were promoting more of a Christian community than any other religion (Masci 3). Although separation of church and state is stated briefly in the First Amendment, these two ladies had the right to go after the town for not allowing a freedom of religion and for most importantly throwing religion into a government owned school function. The case was brought to the Supreme Court in 2007 and is still under debate, with a result hopefully by the end of June 2014. The question is whether or not this prayer is allowed at a school function. Not everyone is willing to put

The Amendments of the Past If we learn from the mistakes of the past have we really rectified them? Throughout the history of America it can be seen that Civil Liberty threatened to tear us apart. But do those affairs still live clandestine and invisible amidst us. The civil liberty issues of the past have been resolved through courageous voicing of opinions, persuasive usage of privileged rights, and the oxymoron of unifying wars. The topic of Civil Liberties is usually associated with a negative response but its connotation is relatively positive, defined as freedom from arbitrary government interference.

Abington School District v. Schempp is a 1963 Supreme Court Case that challenged religious prayer and teachings in Pennsylvania public schools. The Pennsylvania law made it a requirement for schools in all districts to read from the Bible (at least 10 verses) every day before class began. There was also a clause included in the state action that allowed for any child to be excused from the reading with specific permission from their parent or guardian. The question that this case asks is if it is unconstitutional for public schools to mandate children to partake in Bible teachings and practices before classes began. The reason this case was heard in front of the Supreme court is because the Abington School District wanted to reverse an earlier decision by a district court. The district court decided in favor of the Schempp family and found that forced prayer in public schools, even with an opt out clause, still violates the Constitution under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Once the case was heard in front of the United States Supreme Court, eight out of the nine justices agreed with the previous district court’s ruling and found that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional.

When defending himself to his principal, he used the first amendment but was still not taken seriously and was then required to see his guidance counselor for months afterward. This high school student then wrote a letter to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) to ask for help. The ACLU had been searching for a “plaintiff” for many years. After taking this argument to the court, Abington school district defended themselves by saying that “Bible reading was not a religious practice” and that students who did not want to listen to the scripture reading did not have to, they also argued that the “practice need not to be outlawed because the Constitution does not require government to be ‘hostile to religion’” (The Battle pg. 167). To the school board also argued that “to outlaw Bible reading would blaze a trail that would eliminate from public life customs that ‘are now and have long been cherished and accepted by a vast majority of the people (The Battle pg. 167). The Schempp received harassment and abuse from other citizens living in Abbington because of their support of the end to scripture reading. In 1959, the federal district court found that this practice was unconstitutional but the school board quickly found a loophole. The school district then decided to excuse students not wanting to participate in the reading

The parents argued this was a violation of the part of the Constitution that stated the, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Page 370 U. S. 423/http://oyez.org/cases/1960-1969 The decision in the case was six votes to one ruling in favor of the parents and taking the prayer out of public school ceremonies. Even though the prayer was nondenominational and was voluntary. It still did not save it from being unconstitutional. The court ruled by providing the prayer, New York officially approved religion. This was the first of many cases that has taken religious

In 1962, Engel v. Vitale was an important Supreme Court Case in the United States that required a firm “wall of separation” between church and state. A group of families in New Hyde park, New York did not appreciate the implementation of a state prayer in their children’s schools. They families challenged the court about the constitutionality of this practice. The courts were in favor of the families as Justice Hugo

Little did they know their complaint against the school system would shock the country and set into motion a new way of looking at what was a time honored tradition. After several failed attempts through the various court systems in the state of New York, the case ended up going before the highest court in the country, the United States Supreme Court. On June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court voted 6 to 1 in favor of banning the Regents’ Prayer. The Justices considered the prayer a “direct contradiction to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment which prohibits the government from sponsoring or favoring any religion…prayer is a purely religious activity that should be left to the people, not the government” (Haas 48).

They stated that religion unifies many people and puts faith into America. The State believed that the prayer would help bring out the spiritual side of children. The parents argued that the prayer quite simply violated the first amendment, the separation of church and state and requires that the government stay out of the business of prescribing religious activities of any kind. They argued that because not all students shared the same religious beliefs, the public schools should not be a place to preach religion, and believed that religious freedom of the students was being corrupted by providing time during school for prayer. The State rebutted that the prayer was completely optional, therefore was constitutional; if the prayer was against a child’s religion, or if they simply did not want to they did not have to take part in the prayer. A case very similar to this one took place rather recently. An excerpt from the pledge of allegiance states “one nation, under God.” A parent of a child attending pleaded that having said words in the pledge of allegiance is in violation of the Establishment Clause, and took it to the Supreme Court, this is the case of Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow. The Court's decision was that the excerpt did not violate the constitution because it is a symbol of our heritage and it is a

A public school in New York during the start of each school day started with the Pledge of Allegiance and followed by a nondenominational prayer. The New York state law also allowed students to skip the prayer if found offensive. A parent of a student attending this school sued deeming the law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Supreme Courts majority rule (8-1) claimed YES the public school sponsored prayer violates Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, even with allowing students to skip the prayer, it was still considered unconstitutional. This case is important because Chief Justice, Earl Warren states that school sanctioned prayers, including any type of public promotion of religion, violates the Establishment

From the Campbell University School of Law, Jennifer Irby examines the court case Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe which had occurred three months prior. The purpose of the article was to expose the reader to the complicated issue of prayer in schools with an objective viewpoint. This article is similarly set up to Speich’s article of this case as they both are broken down into parts