Engel v. Vitale

Engel v. Vitale
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 3, 1962 Decided June 25, 1962
Full case name	Steven I. Engel, et al. v. William J. Vitale, Jr., et al.'
Citations	370 U.S. 421 (more) 82 S. Ct. 1261; 8 L. Ed. 2d 601; 1962 U.S. LEXIS 847; 20 Ohio Op. 2d 328; 86 A.L.R.2d 1285
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	191 N.Y.S.2d 453 (Sup. Ct. 1959), aff'd, 206 N.Y.S.2d 183 (App. Div. 1960), aff'd, 176 N.E.2d 579 (N.Y. 1961); cert. granted, 368 U.S. 924 (1961).
Subsequent	186 N.E.2d 124 (N.Y. 1962)
Holding
Government-directed prayer in public schools violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, even if the prayer is denominationally neutral and students may remain silent or be excused from the classroom during its recitation.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Potter Stewart · Byron White
Case opinions
Majority	Black, joined by Warren, Douglas, Clark, Harlan, Brennan
Concurrence	Douglas
Dissent	Stewart
Frankfurter and White took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools, due to violation of the First Amendment. The ruling has been the subject of intense debate.

Background

On November 30, 1951, the Board of Regents of New York approved a nondenominational prayer for their morning procedures. Students would be given the choice to be excused for the morning prayer if they chose to. The prayer was twenty-two words that went as follows:

Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.

The case was brought by a group of families of public school students in New Hyde Park from the Herricks Union Free School District who sued the school board president William J. Vitale, Jr. The families argued that the voluntary prayer written by the state board of regents to "Almighty God" contradicted their religious beliefs. Led by Steven I. Engel, a Jewish man, the plaintiffs sought to challenge the constitutionality of the state's prayer in school policy. They were supported by groups opposed to the school prayer including rabbinical organizations, Ethical Culture, and Jewish organizations.

The acting parties were neither all members of a single particular religious persuasion, nor all atheists. Their religious identities were legally identified in court paperwork as two Jews, an atheist, a Unitarian church member, and a member of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. However, despite being listed in the court papers as an atheist, plaintiff Lawrence Roth, who was raised Jewish, later denied that he was an atheist and described himself as religious and a participant of prayer. When religious affiliation was discussed during preparations for the case, Roth claimed he was "a very religious person, but not a churchgoer" and that he said prayers but was unsure of what prayer could accomplish. This resulted in the group's lawyer telling him "You're the atheist." Roth later stated "apparently, you have to have an atheist in the crowd, so we started from there."

The plaintiffs argued that opening the school day with such a prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment), which states, in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". The governments of twenty-two states submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court urging affirmance of the New York Court of Appeals decision that upheld the constitutionality of the prayer. The American Jewish Committee, the Synagogue Council of America, and the American Ethical Union each submitted briefs urging the Court to instead reverse and rule that the prayer was unconstitutional.

Supreme Court of the United States

In a 6–1 decision, the Supreme Court held that reciting government-written prayers in public schools was unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Majority opinion

In his opinion for the Court, Justice Black explained the importance of separation between church and state by giving a lengthy history of the issue, beginning with the 16th century in England. He noted that prayer is a religious activity by its very nature, and that prescribing such a religious activity for school children violates the Establishment Clause.

The Court rejected the defendant's arguments that students were not asked to observe any specific established religion, that the traditional heritage of the nation was religious, and that the prayer was voluntary. The Court held that the mere promotion of a religion is sufficient to establish a violation, even if that promotion is not coercive. The Court further held that the fact that the prayer is vaguely-enough worded not to promote any particular religion is not a sufficient defense, as it still promotes a family of religions (those that recognize "Almighty God"), which still violates the Establishment Clause.

Douglas concurrence

In a concurring opinion, Justice Douglas argued that the Establishment Clause is also violated when the government grants financial aid to religious schools.

Stewart dissent

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Stewart contended that the Establishment Clause was originally written to abolish the idea of a state-sponsored church, and not to stop a non-mandatory "brief non-denominational prayer".

Reactions

The negative reaction of Congress was overwhelming. Only John Lindsay and Emanuel Celler supported the decision. Frank J. Becker called it "the most tragic decision in the history of the United States" and introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to allow religious exercises in public schools.

Subsequent developments

Engel has been the basis for several subsequent decisions limiting government-directed prayer in school. In Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), the Supreme Court ruled Alabama's law permitting one minute for prayer or meditation was unconstitutional. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the court prohibited clergy-led prayer at middle school graduation ceremonies. Lee v. Weisman, in turn, was a basis for Santa Fe ISD v. Doe (2000), in which the Court extended the ban to school-organized student-led prayer at high school football games in which a majority of students voted in favor of the prayer.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 370
• List of United States Supreme Court cases
• Separation of church and state in the United States
• West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
• Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
• Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
• Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
• Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)
• Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022)
• Herricks Union Free School District

Further reading

• Dierenfield, Bruce J. (2007). The battle over school prayer: how Engel v. Vitale changed America. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1525-4. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
• Kurland, Philip B. (1961). "Of Church and State and the Supreme Court". University of Chicago Law Review. 29 (1): 1–96. doi:10.2307/1598520. JSTOR 1598520. S2CID 152318442..
• Laats, Adam. "Our schools, our country: American evangelicals, public schools, and the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963." Journal of religious history 36.3 (2012): 319-334.
• Schwarz, Alan (1968). "No Imposition of Religion: The Establishment Clause Value". Yale Law Journal. 77 (4): 692–737. doi:10.2307/795008. JSTOR 795008..
• Sutherland, Arthur E. Jr. (1962). "Establishment According to Engel". Harvard Law Review. 76 (1): 25–52. doi:10.2307/1338663. JSTOR 1338663..

External links

• Works related to Engel v. Vitale at Wikisource
• Text of Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) is available from: Cornell CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)
• Government case review