Freedom Of Religion : Establishment Clause

The New Jersey Court and Errors reversed the initial ruling and Justice Hugo Black delivered the court’s opinion on the case. “First. They authorized the State to take by taxation the private property of some and bestow it upon others to be used for their own private purposes. This, it is alleged, violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Second. The statute and the resolution forced inhabitants to pay taxes to help support and maintain schools which are dedicated to, and which regularly teach, the Catholic Faith. This is alleged to be a use of state power to support church schools contrary to the prohibition of the First Amendment which the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the states” (Everson v. Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, 1947).

The Union Free School District No.9 (also known as the Herricks School District), in New Hyde Park, New York, voted in favor of adopting this prayer into their public schools. Parents of ten pupils attending schools in this school district, sued the school board, saying that the prayer went against their religious views and the First Amendment to the Constitution, specifically the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law, "respecting the establishment of religion." To say that the Regent's prayer is unconstitutional is an oxymoron in itself, for this

New Jersey ordered all board of educations to reimburse the parents, including those whose children attend catholic schools, of children taking public transportation. To local taxpayer/resident Arch Everson, this violated his 1A rights.

Since the state gave aid to the church related school it violated the Establishment Clause.

Issue: Do statutes that provide state funding for non-public, non-secular schools violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment? Is it constitutional for the state to provide financial assistance to religious schools for the cost of teaching secular subjects? The trial of Lemon v. Kurtzman was a groundbreaking case that took place in Pennsylvania. The case began because the state of Pennsylvania passed a law that allowed the local government to use money to fund educational programs that taught religious-based lessons, activities, and studies. This law was passed through the Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education

The question in the case of Wallace vs Jeffrey is did Alabama’s state law authorizing a period of silence for “meditation or voluntary prayer” violate the Establishment clause of the First Amendment? My answer is Alabama state did not violate the establishment clause of the first amendment. Which puts me on the side of George Wallace. Alabama state has the constitutional right to allow a voluntary or meditating minute throughout the day. There are three solid arguments to prove evidence towards this case on why George Wallace is the better side. The first being not involving state and religion, second being Freedom of religion from the first amendment, third being the respondents precedent cases are irrelevant towards the case being displayed.

Majority Reasoning: There was no incentive to choose one of the secular or religious schools versus the public school, so it was true private choice (and therefore not in violation of the Establishment Clause).

The case that I have been researching is the Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, case number 530 US 290. This case was argued in the year 2000, the final decision was made on June 19, 2000. In this research paper you will read about what happened before, during and after this case. The question that was brought forth to the court and what the Court's final acknowledgement was. Did you know that the Establishment Clause is to prohibit the establishment of a national religion by Congress and the preference by the U.S government of one religion over another.

Issue:did the two statutes violate the 1st amendment establishment clause by making state financial aid available to “church related educational institutions

Students were required to recite a prayer in school in the state of New York. Five Jewish families were upset about the prayer, because it did not align with their religion. They, too, lost their local and state cases. When they reached the Supreme Court, the school system lost the case. The Court ruled that the school is state funded and cannot require students to pray.

Jaffree was presented to the Court. In this particular case, an Alabama statute allowed one minute of meditation or silent prayer at the beginning of each school day. Justice Stevens presented the majority opinion, holding that this statute was also unconstitutional. Using the Lemon Test, it was established that this particular statute had no secular purpose. The dissent, presented by Justice Rehnquist, concluded that this was a mistaken interpretation of constitutional history and that the Establishment Clause does not require the government to be strictly neutral between religion and nonreligion. Upon evaluating the dissent, it can be seen that in some instances, it may be permissible to have some overlap between the government and

U.S. Supreme Court indicated that public school education may include teaching about religion. However, in this case the teaching of religion in public school is only with the intention of learning the history of

In the 1947 Supreme Court case Everson v. Board of Education, the court upheld “bus transportation for parochial school children at public expense on the grounds that the wall of separation between church and state does not prohibit from adopting a general

Until the early nineteen-sixties, organized prayers in public schools were "as common as math problems and milk cartons." (Mummert, 1) For example, in New York, a prayer written by the Board of Regents was recited daily. Its text read: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country." But in 1962, parent Steven Engel of New York led a class action suit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. This decades-old prayer was declared unconstitutional, signalling the beginning of the end for prayer in public schools around the country, and opening the way to further debate and legal action on this sensitive topic.

The Supreme court and circuit courts are guilty of not protecting minority religions and nonbelievers from the majority religion, Christianity. The Supreme Court interpreted the Establishment Clause seventy years ago, however, they failed to return to the issue which has caused circuit courts to flounder in their attempts to uphold the ruling. Discrimination occurs at every level, from public schools to courtrooms across the United States.