- Time Period
- 6/25/1962
- Description
- Engel v. Vitale (1962) dealt with whether a school in New York could set aside time for daily recitation of a non-denominational prayer written by the New York Board of Regents. Students could opt out of reciting the prayer at their parents' request. The Supreme Court held that daily prayer in classrooms violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause because it constituted a religious activity. Moreover, the voluntary nature of the prayer was not sufficient to bring it into compliance with the constitution.
- Browse Related Timeline Entries
- Movements
- Religious Right
- Photographs
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School prayer- Flickr- photo by theirhistory (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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Engel v Vitale, brief of respondents title page- Hathi Trust
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Justice Hugo Black- Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-33516
- Book/Journal Source(s)
- Drakeman, Donald L., 1991. Church-State Constitutional Issues: Making Sense of the Establishment Clause. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
- Web Page Contributor
- Robert Martin Affliated with: Assistant Professor, Southeastern Lousiana University