Supreme Court Cases
Engle vs. Vitale
Case: In the late 1950's the New York State Board of Regents wrote and adopted a prayer, which was supposed to be nondenominational. The board recommended that students in public schools say the prayer on a voluntary basis every morning. In New Hyde Park Long Island a parent sued the school claiming that the prayer violated the first amendment of the constitution. The school argued that the prayer was nondenominational and did not attempt to "establish or endorse" a religion and thus that it did not violate the establishment clause.
Constitutional issue it relates to: Freedom of Religion
Decision: The court ruled against the school district and upheld the establishment clause of the first amendment. Prayer in schools was to be considered unconstitutional.
Lemon vs. Kurtzman
Case: Pennsylvania's law included paying the salaries of teachers in parochial schools, assisting the purchasing of textbooks, and other teaching supplies, as required by Pennsylvania's Non-Public Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968. In Rhode Island, the State paid 15% of the salaries of private school teachers as mandated by the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act of 1969. In both cases the teachers were teaching secular, not religious, subjects.
Constitutional issue it relates to: Freedom of Religion
Decision: Arguments were made on March 3rd, 1971. On June 28th, 1971, the Court unanimously (7-0) determined that the direct government assistance to religious schools was unconstitutional.
Bridget Mergens-Mayhew vs. U.S.
Case: Westside High School, a public secondary school that receives federal financial assistance, permits its students to join, on a voluntary basis, a number of recognized groups and clubs, all of which meet after school hours on school premises. Citing the Establishment Clause and a School Board policy requiring clubs to have faculty sponsorship, petitioner school officials denied the request of respondent Mergens for permission to form a Christian club that would have the same privileges and meet on the same terms and conditions as other Westside student groups, except that it would have no faculty sponsor. After the Board voted to uphold the denial, respondents, current and former Westside students, brought suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. They alleged, inter alia, that the refusal to ...
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...nion that Gregg had failed in his burden of showing that the Georgia Supreme Court had not done all it could to prevent discriminatory practices in the forming of his sentence. This decision became the first time the Court stated, "punishment of death does not invariably violate the Constitution."
Tinker vs. Des Moines
Case: Several students and parents in Des Moines organized a protest of the Vietnam War. Students were to wear black armbands to school in protest. When the school found out they warned all the students and parents that anyone wearing the armbands would be would be suspended. The Tinker children wore their armbands to school (they were the only ones of the group to do so) and were suspended. Mr. and Mrs. Tinker filed suit claiming that the school violated the children's right to freedom of speech and expression. The school claimed that the armbands were disruptive.
Constitutional issue it relates to: Freedom of Speech
Decision: The court ruled against the school district saying, "students do not shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates. In doing so the court protected what has come to be known as "symbolic speech."
The federal court rejected dismissed Franklin’s case, because Title IX did not allow for monetary relief, The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the court’s
This case was appealed to the Supreme Court on June 17, 1963. The Court ruled 8-1 against the prayer recitation. This ruling was partially due to the case Engel v. Vitale, where a similar Establishment Clause issue was approached. In both cases, the strict...
Therefore, the respondents took the case to court (Island Trees…). The holding, the court’s decision, by a 5-4 vote, was “The First Amendment limits the power of local or school boards to remove library books from junior high schools and high schools” (Island Trees…). The court also said that the Board of Education “should not intervene in ‘the daily operations of school systems’ unless ‘basic constitutional values’ were ‘sharply implicate[d]”(qtd. in Board of Education, Island). The dissent consisted of Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, and O’Connor; the concurrence consisted of Blackmun and White (Island Trees…).
Separate but equal, judicial review, and the Miranda Rights are decisions made by the Supreme Court that have impacted the United States in history altering ways. Another notable decision was made in the Tinker v. Des Moines Case. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided that the students in the case should have their rights protected and that the school acted unconstitutionally. Justice Fortas delivered a compelling majority opinion. In the case of Tinker v Des Moines, the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was strongly supported with great reasoning but had weaknesses that could present future problems.
Through using case laws, the First Amendment, and previous cases, Justice Abe Fortas explains the reasoning behind why the principal was not permissible. In the first two paragraphs, Fortas provides a brief summary stating how the policy banning armbands go against the First Amendment. In the following paragraph, Fortas says, “Only a few of the 18,00 students in the school system wore the black armbands.” When introducing his first argument, he supports this fact explaining how “the work of the schools or any class was [not] disrupted.” As for the fourth paragraph, Justice Fortas provides a counter argument with what the District Court said. The District Court concluded the school authorities were reasonable since it was based upon their fear o...
The school district appealed the decision, arguing that the speech had a disruptive effect on the educational process. The school district said it had an interest in protecting an audience of minors from indecent speech in the school. The school board believed it had the right to control language that was used during a school-sponsored activity. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Many Supreme Court cases in the United States have reassured its citizens’ rights. One of those cases was that of the 1965 Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case. This case was about five students who were suspended from school for wearing black armbands. Should the students have been suspended? The Tinker v. Des Moines case was a very controversial Supreme Court case in which the right to freedom of speech and expression for students in public schools was violated.
Furthermore, the opinion of the Supreme Court reveled that students can express their opinions anywhere even when the principal clearly made a rule banning armbands so problems would not be created. The disruptions from armbands could ca...
The decision to integrate Boston schools in the 1970’s created negative race relations and later fueled a political debate that would change schools across the country. Most desegregation efforts in the United States began with the case of Oliver Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. The case ruled that segregation on the basis of race was prohibited because it violated citizen’s rights under the Constitution. On June 21, 1974 in the case of Morgan vs. Hennigan, Judge Garret made a ruling that accused the Boston School Committee of engaging in racial segregation. “This ruling later would serve to fuel one of the prominent controversies embedded in our nation’s ongoing struggle for racial desegregation.” The busing policy created extreme acts of violence, invaded personal freedoms, hindered students’ education and
It was irrational for these students to be suspended from the school. The high school students named John F. Tinker, who was fifteen-years-old, John’s younger sister Mary Beth Tinker, who was thirteen-years-old, and their friend Christopher Eckhardt, who was sixteen years old, should not have been suspended. They were under the protection of the First Amendment. The parents of those students sued the school district for violating the students’ right of expressions and sought an injunction to prevent the school from decupling the students. The Supreme Court of the United Sates stepped in and the question of law was if. They ruled in the favor of the Tinker’s because it was in a seven to two decision "Tinker V. Des Moines Independent Community School District."
Mrs. Moreno and the other plaintiffs in this case believes religious education should be the responsibility of parents and religious communities, and not the public schools to which she sends her children (ACLU, 2007). Additionally, Mrs. Moreno and the other plaintiffs’ feels the use of their tax dollars to promote and endorse religion in the public school system is unconstitutional (ACLU, 2007).
Once Hitler rose to power, the Franks fled to Holland, where the hoped to be safe from the Jewish-blood thirsty Nazis, they went on with their normal lives, until once again Hitler took over. This caused the Franks to flee again, only this time they would be in hiding. A plan was devised; the Franks would stay in an abandoned section of the Kraler office building, along with another family of three: the Van Daans. The Franks set off for their new "home" before the Van Daans. They had to carry with them things that would last for as far as they knew, years. Anne took with her two vests, three pairs of pants, a dress and skirt, jacket, summer coat, shoes, two pairs of stockings, a cap and a scarf. During the journey through the streets, non-jews looked at them with pity and sorrow, they knew that there was nothing they could do to help them, no rides, no food, no help period.
Anne’s diary began on her thirteenth birthday. She had a normal life for a girl of her age, and valued the same things as any girl; she loved being with her friends, enjoyed school and already had established a passion for writing which she expressed through her diary. She first wrote “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support,” it is established that Anne, although a very social young girl, felt that she could not confide in her friends. The tone with which she wrote and the trivial matters that she wrote about exemplify her young age and lack of maturity. She wrote for the sake of writing, and wrote about the happenings in her life. When the first signs of anti-Semitism started to show, signs of worry showed through her writing, but she never wrote too deeply about it.
The case specifics involve a student who made a provocative speech to the school body and received a three-day suspension. The schools yet again where given the right to violate his first amendment rights by not letting him give the speech which is not justifiable because the first amendment is supposed to give him all the rights that would allow him to make that speech. One huge case that involves vast majority of most students is the case named Board of Education of Independent School District #92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls 2002.
The case Elk Grove Unified School District versus Newdow came about when a student parent, Michael Newdow, an atheist, has a disagreement with the Pledge of Allegiance. Elk Grove Unified School District is a public elementary school where teachers begin the day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, but it is considering being voluntary. Under California law, all elementary schools must recite the Pledge of Allegiance once a day unless those student object due to their religion. As stated before, in 1954 the Congressional Act added the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. Michael Newdow took it upon himself to review the School District policy referring to the religious portion. This caused Michael Newdow to sue in the federal district court in California, stating making students listen to the Pledge of Allegiance, even if the students do not choose to participate to the word “under God” violates the establishment clause of the United States Constitution’s First Amendment