Engel V Vitale Case Study

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Engel v. Vitale (No. 468) 10 N.Y.2d 174, 176 N.E.2d 579, reversed. | Syllabus | Opinion [ Black ] | Concurrence [ Douglas ] | Dissent [ Stewart ] | HTML version PDF version | HTML version PDF version | HTML version PDF version | HTML version PDF version | BLACK, J., Opinion of the Court SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 370 U.S. 421 Engel v. Vitale CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW YORK No. 468 Argued: April 3, 1962 --- Decided: June 25, 1962 MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court. The respondent Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9, New Hyde Park, New York, acting in its official capacity under state law, directed the School District's principal to cause the following…show more content…
This daily procedure was adopted on the recommendation of the State Board of Regents, a governmental agency created by the State Constitution to which the New York Legislature has granted broad supervisory, executive, and [p423] legislative powers over the State's public school system. [n1] These state officials composed the prayer which they recommended and published as a part of their "Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools,"…show more content…
Nothing, of course, could be more wrong. The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And perhaps it is not too much to say that, since the beginning of that history, many people have devoutly believed that "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." It was doubtless largely due to men who believed this that there grew up a sentiment that caused men to leave the cross-currents of officially established state religions and religious persecution in Europe and come to this country filled with the hope that they could find a place in which they could pray when they pleased to the God of their faith in the language they chose. [n20] And there were men of this same faith in the [p435] power of prayer who led the fight for adoption of our Constitution and also for our Bill of Rights with the very guarantees of religious freedom that forbid the sort of governmental activity which New York has attempted here. These men knew that the First Amendment, which tried to put an end to governmental control of religion and of prayer, was not written to destroy either. They knew, rather, that it was written to quiet well justified fears which nearly all of them felt arising out of an awareness that governments of the past had shackled
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