The case of the Good News Club et. al v. Milford Central began in 1992. This case was strictly a case that was caused because schools had thought that religious based groups should not be taking place at schools. The reason that this case had begun though is because the school had opened up the school for after school activities.
The activities that they had opened the school for were to be education based, entertainment based, or just other things that pertained to the community. This had left the Good News Club thinking that they would be just fine holding their annual meetings at the school every week. The group had even asked the school for permission to host these meetings and the school denied them. The reason for this is because the
A student at Westside High School requested to form a Christian Club that would meet after school. The club would be granted the same privileges as the other student groups at the school, but they did not have a faculty sponsor. Her request was denied by the principal stating that the club would violate the Establishment Clause and the School Board policy requiring a faculty member to sponsor the club. Mergens took her concerns to the School Board. The School Board upheld the principal’s decision. Mergens filed a lawsuit against the Board of Education of Westside Community Schools, for denying the request for a Christian
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.
In the Supreme Court Case Bethel School District #43 vs. Fraser, the main constitutional issue under scrutiny was the first amendment rights and what they specifically cover. The parties involved in the case was the Bethel School District itself, and the high school senior from that school named Matthew Fraser. The court hearing itself happened in 1986 but the incident causing the court case happened in 1983. The incident occurred at Bethel High School in Bethel Washington, and was an ongoing controversy until it was put to rest by the Supreme Court.
In the case of Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens, several students in January of 1990 sued the school board alleging that Westside's refusal to allow the students to start a Christian club violated the Equal Access Act. Some students wanted to form this club and be given the same privileges and meeting terms as other after-school schools in this district. The administration initially denied the request, and the school board upheld the administration's decision. The Court of Appeals found in favor of the students in June of 1990.
The court case that I chose, Westside Community Schools vs. Mergens took place in 1990. A girl named Bridget, who was a senior at Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska wanted to start a religious club for kids in her school. When she brought her idea to the principal of the school, he denied her request for a religious club, and said that it would be illegal to have a religious club at a public school. Bridget tested her principal, and the case was brought to court. Her lawsuit became the Supreme Court's test case for another big case that they were dealing with.
The Chamberlain v School District case in 2002, was one where the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the school board could not impose its religious values onto it students by refusing to use book that talked about same-sex marriages.
Gobitis and Barnette are two very important cases whose rulings had a big significance on a specific minority and the State. In the Gobitis case the Gobitis kids were expelled from public schools in Minersville School district for refusing to salute the flag. Saluting the flag involved standing and placing your right hand over your heart as you say the pledge of allegiance. It was not done in disrespect but due to their religious belief. The Gobitis’ religion looks down upon saluting the flag or symbols like that. Saluting the flag is a daily exercise that is done by students and teachers. Whoever refuses is expelled and the parents are prosecuted also. When the kids were kicked out of all public schools they had to go to private school where their dad could barely afford it but had no choice. Later on the Barnette case reversed the ruling of the court. It focused more on the constitution and what was legal. It was unconstitutional to punish a student for exercising their freedom of religion and speech. Citizens have rights and it had to be acknowledged, not just kick students out of school for their belief. As stated in the Bill of Rights in the first amendment people have freedom to religion and speech and can freely exercise that. The Barnette case made that obvious and gave the people back their rights. The justices from each case had their own opinion on what they thought was best and what wasn’t. Some were all for giving citizens their freedom of speech
In cases having to do with constitutionality, the issue of the separation of church and state arises with marked frequency. This battle, which has raged since the nation?s founding, touches the very heart of the United States public, and pits two of the country's most important influences of public opinion against one another. Although some material containing religious content has found its way into many of the nation's public schools, its inclusion stems from its contextual and historical importance, which is heavily supported by material evidence and documentation. It often results from a teacher?s own decision, rather than from a decision handed down from above by a higher power. The proposal of the Dover Area School District to
1. Yes, I believe the Bible club has legitimate grounds to file suit for use of school facilities. Principal Gayle Dixon’s decision to deny the club use is based on her interpretation of the club’s charter to be discriminatory and not necessarily the law’s or districts.
The issue of Tinker v. Des Moines ISD was that students were to wear black arm bands to school in protest of the Vietnam War; however the school warned that anyone wearing the armbands would be would be suspended, but the Tinker children wore their armbands to school (they were the only ones of the group to do so) and were suspended leading to Mr. and Mrs. Tinker filing a law suit claiming that the school violated the children's right to freedom of speech and expression. The court ruled against the school district saying that "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates. In doing so the court protected what has come to be known as "symbolic speech." In the case of Engle v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled that prayers in schools were considered unconstitutional, leading to a ban of all prayers led by teachers in school, even if the prayer was considered voluntary, stating, in a way, that there was some sort of “separation of church and state” which is not true. Lastly, New York Times v. Sullivan focused more on the freedom of the press, ruling that “actual malice” must be proven to support a finding of libel against a public figure.
The appeals court decision came almost 40 years to the day after the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale. In that case, the court ruled it unconstitutional for public schools to allow prayer, even though the prayer was non-denominational and students were allowed abstain from the exercise. When
A few other main talking point in this case, brought up by the majority, are that religion is very important to many American people and since there is no way to cover all the religions of Americans, the prayer should stay out of the government establishment, that violence like wars and other destructive events has happened when other governments tried to involve themselves in religious affairs, and the government involving in religion can mess with their sense of authority. The public may see less of a government official if they choose to use religion in their professional work. All these point made it easy to make the decision that the New York law was unconstitutional and prayer could not be involved in the schools curriculum ("Facts and Case Summary - Engel v. Vitale"). This case and many other court cases that are centered around religion violation in public school are often based off of certain aspects, beliefs, facts , and problems in the schools or the community.
I believe that it´s the same offender in the Parkinson case and the Johnson case, which is making the offender a serial killer because he has killed 3 people and it has been over a period over 30 days. By looking at different serial killer typologies my firm belief is that this offender will fall into the lust serial killer typology. I concluded this by firstly looking if the crimes were act-focused kills or process kills, I concluded it was process kills because the offender had taken the time to abduct both Parkinson and Johnson and didn 't just kill them right away like an act-focused killer would do. With the offender being a process killer he could only be organized as well because process killers cannot be disorganized. The offender would either be a lust killer, power-control killer or a thrill killer. I concluded that the offender in this case would not be a thrill serial killer, since this kind of murderer gets off my seeing his victims suffering, which is the most important factor for this type of offender. In the Parkinson and Johnson murders there were no signs of torture on the victims bodies and therefore I do not believe that this offender would be a thrill serial killer.
Case number 2: McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948), this was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with separation of church and state. This case was argued at the United States Supreme Court to the power of a state to use tax money to support public schools to provide religious instruction.
In summarizing the salient points of the Supreme Court case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, it had to do with the respondent’s father who sued candidates, including a school region, affirming that the school locale's approach requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at his little girl's school damaged the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the father had standing and decided for the father. Certiorari was conceded to audit the standing and First Amendment issues.