This paper discusses how the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the United States government interact to allow each individual in a public school freedom to pray while not endorsing any religion. The legislative branch makes the laws by which the public schools operate. The executive branch led by the President, through the Secretary of Education and the governors in each of the fifty states administer the laws. When disputes arise and cases enter the court system, the cases pass from the lower courts to the Supreme Court as the judicial branch functions to resolve the cases. One person or branch cannot accomplish this complicated job of governing working alone. Checks and balances among the 3 branches see this job is accomplished. …show more content…
This paper shows how all branches work together in a system of checks and balances to establish justice. Starting with the legislative branch, the Congress, uses to the constitution for guidance.
Congress established the Board or Education lead by the Secretary of Education, who is in the President’s cabinet to administer guidance. The President nominates Supreme Court justices. The first and fourteenth amendments to the constitution establish the rules that apply to school prayer. The first amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution has several clauses; the clause that pertains to school prayer is the Equal Protection Clause requiring each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within that state. What this means is, each student in the school is protected from being forced to pray in school in any certain way. John Roberts, a white house lawyer in 1985 proposed allowing prayer in public schools as "within the constitutional power of Congress." Schools in some states had prayer in the beginning of the day led by a school official. A New York state law required the Pledge of Allegiance under God and recognizing the dependence upon God. Also, the state of Arkansas also had a similar …show more content…
law. The parent’s issue was that the school-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
The issue went to the supreme court of the United States which ruled that the prayer was not constitutional. The Supreme Court ruled on two landmark cases related to prayer in schools. Public schools cannot sponsor Bible reading (Abington versus Schempp, 1963). The Lemon case of 1971 specified public schools may not teach courses in religion only public school courses. These rulings caused the states to make changes. The changes were made through the government’s executive branch. Moving on to the executive branch, the Governor of Arkansas in 1985, Bill Clinton, had to decide how to implement the executive order to end a moment of prayer at school events led by a school official. Because students of different religions are all present at school events, Governor Clinton said he opposed forcing individual students to pray in any way led by a school endorsed religion and decided to replace the moment of spoken prayer by a school official with an authorized moment of silence. He insisted that pausing in silence did not amount to coercion or an endorsement of religion. During the silent time, each individual student is free to choose to talk to God like they understand God and leaving others free to think about the reason for the moment of silence without praying according to the methods of any one religion being forced on an individual
student. . A further Supreme Court action in 1963, in the case of Abington versus Schempp said schools could not sponsor Bible reading. In 1971, it ruled teachers must only teach public school courses and not teach courses in religion. In conclusion, anyone in a public school will ask for help from a higher power as long as schools give tests but the school cannot require prayer. Because of the protections of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the U.S. government, schools cannot teach religion and each individual student is free to talk to God as they understand without the school specifying how to pray.
In 1971 in Mobile County Alabama the School Board created a state statute that set aside time at the beginning of each day for silent ’meditation’ (statute 6-1-20), and in 1981 they added another statute 16-1-20.1 which set aside a minute for ‘silent prayer’ as well. In addition to these, in 1982 the Mobile County School Board enacted statute 16-1-20.2, which specified a prayer that teachers could lead ‘willing’ students in “From henceforth, any teacher or professor in any public educational institution within the State of Alabama, recognizing that the Lord God is one, at the beginning of any homeroom or any class, may pray, may lead willing students in prayer, or may lead the willing students in the following prayer to God… “ (Jaffree By and Through Jaffree v. James). Ishmael Jaffree was the father of three students, Jamael Aakki Jaffree, Makeba Green, and Chioke Saleem Jaffree, who attended a school in Mobile County Alabama. Jaffree complained that his children had been pressured into participating in religious activities by their teachers and their peers, and that he had requested that these activities stopped. When the school did nothing about Jaffree’s complaints he filed an official complaint with the Mobile County School Board through the United States District Courts. The original complaint never mentioned the three state statutes that involved school prayer. However, on June 4, 1982 Jaffree changed his complaint. He now wanted to challenge the constitutionality of statutes 16-1-20, 16-1-20.1 and 16-1-20.2, and motioned for a preliminary injunction. The argument against these state laws was that they were an infringement of the Establishment Clause within the First Amendment of the Constitution, which states that Congr...
Abington v. Schempp was an important case regarding the establishment of religion in American schools. Until the late twentieth century, most children were sent to schools which had some sort of religious instruction in their day. The schools taught the morals, values, and beliefs of Christianity in addition to their everyday curriculum. However, as some people began to drift away from Christianity, parents believed this was not fair to the kids and justifiable by the government. They thought public schools should not be affiliated with religion to ensure the freedom of all of the families who send students there. Such is the situation with the 1963 Supreme Court case Abington v. Schempp.
September 17, 1787, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; during the heat of summer, in a stuffy assembly room of Independence Hall, a group of delegates gathered. After four months of closed-door quorums, a four page, hand written document was signed by thirty-nine attendees of the Constitutional Convention. This document, has come to be considered, by many, the framework to the greatest form of government every known; the Constitution of the United States. One of the first of its kind, the Constitution laid out the frame work for the government we know today. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people; constructed of three branches; each branch charged with their own responsibilities. Article one established the Congress or Legislative branch, which would be charged with legislative powers. Article two created the Executive branch, providing chief executive powers to a president, who would act in the capacity of Commander in Chief of the Country’s military forces. The President of the United States also acts as head of state to foreign nations and may establish treaties and foreign policies. Additionally, the President and the departments within the Executive branch were established as the arm of government that is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress. Thirdly, under Article three of the Constitution, the Judicial branch was established, and consequently afforded the duty of interpreting the laws, determining the constitutionality of the laws, and apply it to individual cases. The separation of powers is paramount to the system of checks and balances among the three branches; however, although separate they must support the functions of the others. Because of this, the Legislative an...
The Supreme Court case in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow result in a unanimous ruling that the phrase “under God” may remain in the Pledge of Allegiance as narrated in public school classrooms. The court made the decision because the atheist father did not have grounds to sue the school district on behalf of his daughter. While the ruling was made on the Flag Day, it did not meet the clear endorsement of the constitutionality of the pledge as sought by President Bush and leaders of Republican and Democratic Parties in Congress. Notably, the eight judges who participated in the case had voted to turn over a federal appeals court decision in 2003 that would have prohibited the use of the phrase in public schools as an infringement of the constitutional outlaw on state-sponsored religion. A majority of these justices i.e. five made that ruling on procedural grounds in which Michael A. Newdow, the atheist, did not have legal reasons to sue the school district (Lane, 2004).
Prayer in public schools became an issue in 1960: Madalyn Murray O'Hair sued the Baltimore MD school system on behalf of her son William J Murray, because he was being forced to participate in prayer in schools. Ultimately, her actions and the actions of the American Atheist Organization resulted in the Supreme Court ruling of 1962. (Tragically, she disappeared in August of 1995. In January 2001, a full five and a half years after they were last seen, the bodies of the Murray-O’Hairs were finally found on a sprawling ranch near the little town of Camp Wood, Tex.)
Rieff, Burt. "Conflicting Rights and Religious Liberty: The School-Prayer Controversy in Alabama, 1962-1985." Alabama Review 3(2001):163. eLibrary. Web. 31 Aug. 2011.
The court system has jumped back and forth throughout the years and this may seem very confusing to the average person but they’ve never changed their mind on the big cases that were said in the previous paragraph. But the court seems to be sporadic in its decisions outside of these big cases. It all starts in 1962 when they held that prayer in the public schools was a violation of the first amendment.
In 1962 the Supreme Court decided that public schools did not have the power to authorize school prayer. This decision made public school in the U.S. more atheistic than many European nations. For example, crosses still hang on the classroom walls in Poland, and the Ten Commandments are displayed in Hungary. There are prayers held at the beginning of legislative and judicial sessions and every President has mentioned a divine power in his inaugural speech. In keeping with a spirit of religious freedom as stated in the First Amendment, there is no reason why students should not be allowed to have a moment of silence during the school day when they can pray or do as they choose.
So now any part of the government has to provide the three requirements that are defined above to issue laws against a religious practice. No longer could the government just do what they wanted to do, they had to prove that the religious act is a compelling state interest. The RFRA was supported by many people. RFRA is enthusiastically supported by more than fifty religious and civil liberties groups in the political and theological fields. Never has a broader coalition been assembled to support Congressional legislation.
Those in favor of prayer in school pose several arguments. They say it will increase tolerance in schools, as children learn of different religions and how they practice. Many feel it will bring to surface the personal questions kids have about god and religion and allow them to search for their own belief system. The most common however is the argument that bringing prayer back to schools will help reverse the moral degragation of this country. As the Reverend Jeffery L. Osgood, pastor of the First southern Baptist Church in Dover wrote, "Back in 1962, when prayer was removed by the Supreme Court, something happened to America's soul and America's schools. Our nation became increasingly secular and less tolerant of moral standards and values. Since America became to proud to pray to the God of Heaven who created us, we have been reaping the rewards. Crime is way up. The family has broken up. The test scores of students have taken a submarine dive. Its time for a change!"
Students are guaranteed the right to pray, as long as it is not disruptive, and it is not promoted during classroom hours. Not only are these permitted, they are actually protected forms of speech under the U.
The Constitution communicates very little details regarding the President’s use of the power of veto and the role as Commander in Chief, but it was these presidents that established the major authority of the executive branch in these areas. During the birth of the new nation, the Founding Fathers sought to construct a system of checks and balances which were catalyzed by the common fear of tyrannical government and based upon the ideologies of the Enlightenment. In 1787, while the infant nation was wobbling on the weak footings of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutional Convention was adjourned and disputes around power and representation mustered new plans for the future. Although the Convention intended to revise and rework the Articles, James Madison, alongside the Virginia delegation, drafted an entirely new design for the nation, becoming the first formal proposal for a separation of powers.... ...
Gaylor, Annie Laurie. The Case Against School Prayer. “Keep the Church and State Forever Separate.” Madison, Wisconsin: Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 1995. ( www.ffrf.org/pray.html )
The argument over the separation of church and state has been an ongoing debate without a conclusion, and has always been a topic to speak on. Many people have strong opinions for or against the separation. While some believe that prayer in school is beneficial to the development of children and of their faith, others believe that it could completely criticize their faith by not giving the student the option to explore their beliefs. In the “Resistance to Civil Government” by Henry David Thoreau, the author is passionate about allowing people to beli...
...issue that was discussed was the case Lee v. Weisman (1992) a Rhode Island principle, Robert E. Lee invited a rabbi to speak at the school’s graduation. With a failed attempt at stopping the rabbi by speaking at his daughter’s graduation, Weisman filed for bans on religious speaking at schools. When brought to court it was declared against the first amendment because it was a public school run by the government. Therefore personal prayers inflicted upon the liberties of people.