Many school children and adults have tested the idea of Patriotism and what it means to be a American with a different religion. Many court cases have brought up the issue of school patriotism to national attention. Minersville School District v. Gobitis was a case in the Supreme Court dealing with the religious rights of school children. The courts argument is that schools should force students under any religion to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and honor the American flag, although the students religion was against these practices. Two Jehovah's Witness school children, ages 10 and 12, Lillian and William Gobitis were suspended from school for refusing to salute the American flag in Minersville, Pennsylvania.
The Supreme Court ruled in the 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette that school officials violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when they punished students and their parents for the students’ refusal to salute to the American flag. During the 1940s, the United States Supreme Court discussed two cases in which the majority disputed with the rights of individuals. In the first case, Minersville School District v. Gobitis, the court ruled that all students had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance while saluting the flag in the classroom. However, the Supreme Court faced the same issue three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and was against a state school order that public school students must participate in a patriotic ceremony. The issues of the Barnette case stemmed from the decision of the Minersville School District v. Gobitis case.
Rosendo Salazar GOVT220-D03 April 9, 2012 Engel v. Vitale: A Liberal Ruling on a Conservative Matter Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a pivotal Supreme Court decision, argued to be pivotal in the elimination of government conducted prayer in public schools. For many decades, public educational institutions found ways to include prayer into their daily routines. The question at hand was whether this was an unconstitutional practice, by violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, or a voluntary prayer of a non-denominational nature. This ruling was near unanimous among the Justices but split politicians along conservative and liberal lines. This decision was a victory for the liberal interpretations of the first amendment rights granted by the Constitution.
“Bong Hits 4 Jesus” “Bong Hits for Jesus” is in reference to the 2002 freedom of speech case between Deborah Morse and Joseph Frederick. It all began when Morse, a high school principle, suspended 18-year-old Frederick after he displayed a banner that read “bong hits 4 Jesus” across the street from the school during the 2002 Olympic torch relay. As a result, Frederick sued, claiming that his constitutional right to freedom of speech was violated. His suit was dismissed by the federal district court, but on the appeal, the ninth circuit court reversed it, concluding that Frederick’s speech rights were violated. In the end, the court ruled in favor of Morse.
Any student who failed to follow the policy would be sent home immediately and suspended until they decided to follow the schools policy. The families of those fellow students didn’t decide to file a lawsuit until after the Iowa Civil Liberties Union approached their family, and ACLU agreed to help the family with their case. The parents in turn, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, which upheld the decision of the Des Moines school board. The courts seven to two decision held that the first amendment applied to public schools, and that administrators would have to demonstrate constitutionally valid reasons for any specific regulation of speech in the classroom. The court observed, " it can hardly be argued that either students or
Even though the sign was being held across the street, technically off school property, Frederick was still suspended for five days because Morse believed that is was against the anti-drug policy of the school. After Frederick quoted Thomas Jefferson which led him to get a ten day suspension from school which he tried to appeal to the Juneau School Board who upheld the suspension. On April 25, 2002 Frederick filed a civil rights lawsuit against Morse as well as the school board claiming that they violated his federal and state constitutional right to free speech. He sought after a declaratory relief, injunctive relief, as well as monetary awards. The United States District Court for the District of Alaska dismissed Frederick’s case on summary judgment.
In 1995 a parent in Franklin County, Kansas, challenged it for themes of murder, suicide, and the “degradation of motherhood and adolescence.” In Johnson County, Missouri charges claimed that The Giver “desensitized children to euthanasia.” In Oklahoma a parent objected to the novel’s use of the terms “clairvoyance,” “transcendent,” and “guided imagery,” because these were “occult, New Age practices, that the Bible tells us to avoid.” In 2007 parents in Concord, California were offended by descriptions of pill-popping, suicide, and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly. In some of these cases the charges were dismissed, but even when a few protective parents get their way in some districts, and the book is removed from a handful of libraries, its unlikely to stop young readers from finding it. When asked for her opinion about the banning of The Giver, Lois Lowery replied, “I think banning books is a very, very dangerous thing. It takes away an important freedom. Any time there is an attempt to ban a book, you should fight it as hard as you can.
In this case Deborah sued because of the fact that they held a Christian prayer during the graduation. After that she cited the first amendment clause against the state against establishing any religion. List two current court cases relating to this amendment. Two cases relating to this is 2010 In Citizens United v. FEC. And 2011 In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association.
The prayer was offered to the school boards in the State for use, the participation in the prayer was voluntary. Engel v. Vitale is a famous supreme court case that started in 1962 that dealt with the voluntary prayer which was stated in schools. People though that praying to god was going against their beliefs and religion so they wanted for the prayer to be removed from the schools.In New York, the Union Free School District No. 9 directed the local principal to have the prayer said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of the school day.The parents of ten pupils in the New Hyde Park schools disagreed and were upset that this prayer was being said in their children's school. They soon filed a suit in a New York State court to banned the prayer,they kept on insisting that the use of this prayer in the public schools was contrary to their own and their children's beliefs, religions, or religious practices.
These rights have been evolving all over the time. This is because even though they were set some time back, not all of them were implemented as some of them were not respected by the United States government. For example, in 1986, Deborah Weisman sued her public school for conducting a Christian graduation prayer yet the first clause of the first amendment prohibited the government from establishing an official church (CANDELA OPEN COURSES, n.d). In 1802, Thomas Jefferson reaffirmed that the First amendment’s freedom was intended to separate the church from the Stat (CANDELA OPEN COURSES, n.d). Thus, the initial creation of human rights for United States citizen was not followed by their implementation.