Five-minute digest
Engel v. Vitale
Summary
In 1951 the New York State Board of Regents, which supervises the state's public schools, published a Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training that included a short prayer of twenty-two words: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country. The Regents recommended it for daily use. In 1958 the board of Union Free School District No. 9 in New Hyde Park, on Long Island, directed that each class say it aloud with a teacher present at the start of the day. The parents of ten pupils, among them Steven Engel, sued the board's president, William J. Vitale Jr., and its members, arguing that a prayer composed by state officials violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The New York courts upheld the practice so long as no child was compelled to take part, and the Court of Appeals of New York affirmed. The parents argued that whatever its brevity, the Regents' prayer was an official religious exercise written by the government. The school board, the Regents and a group of parents who intervened to support the prayer answered that participation was voluntary, that the words favoured no denomination, and that the prayer simply continued the country's long tradition of acknowledging God in public life. By a vote of 6 to 1 the Court reversed. Justice Hugo L. Black held that the Establishment Clause means at least that it is no business of government to compose official prayers for the people to recite. He recounted the history of the Book of Common Prayer and the Act of Uniformity in England, the persecution of dissenters such as John Bunyan, and the struggle in Virginia that produced Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance and Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom. The clause, Black wrote, does not depend on showing compulsion, since government support of a particular religious practice places indirect pressure on minorities, and a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion. He denied that the ruling showed hostility to prayer, observing that many settlers came to America precisely to pray as they chose. Justice Potter Stewart dissented. He argued that no one's free exercise had been infringed, that letting willing children say a prayer establishes no official religion, and that denying their wish withholds from them the spiritual heritage of the nation. He listed the Court's own opening cry of God save the United States and this Honorable Court, congressional chaplains, presidential oaths, the anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance and the coinage motto, and he objected to reliance on the metaphor of a wall of separation, a phrase not found in the Constitution. The library text gives Black's opinion and Stewart's dissent in full; Douglas's concurrence is not printed and footnotes are dropped. Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) extended the ruling to devotional Bible reading, and proposals in Congress in 1964 and 1966 to amend the Constitution to permit school prayer did not pass.
Top Lessons
Who writes the prayer?
Black's opinion turns on the fact that state officials composed the words. He drew on English history, where Parliament fixed the form of public worship, to argue that the authors of the First Amendment meant to keep government out of that business entirely.
Establishment and free exercise
The First Amendment contains two religion clauses. Black held that an establishment can occur without anyone being forced, while Stewart emphasized that no child's free exercise was burdened and asked how willing prayer could establish anything.
History as argument
Both Justices appeal to history. Black looks to the Book of Common Prayer, the Act of Uniformity and Virginia's disestablishment; Stewart looks to the Court's crier, legislative chaplains, the anthem and the Pledge. Students can weigh which history better illuminates the question.
Protecting religion from government
Black insisted the decision protected religion rather than opposing it, arguing that state sponsorship degrades faith. Stewart answered that removing the prayer denied children a share in their spiritual heritage. Both Justices claimed to honour religious liberty.
Verified Quotes
Frequently cited
“it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.”
“When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain.”
Frequently cited
“Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.”
“The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion.”
Frequently cited
“I cannot see how an "official religion" is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it.”
“On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation.”
Medical Lens
The case concerns a classroom prayer and the religion clauses of the First Amendment; it has no medical content.