Engel v. Vitale

Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools, due to violation of the First Amendment. The ruling has been the subject of intense debate. On November 30, 1951, the Board of Regents of New York approved a nondenominational prayer for their morning procedures. Students would be given the choice to be excused for the morning prayer if they chose to. The prayer was twenty-two words that went as follows: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen. The case was brought by a group of families of public school students in New Hyde Park from the Herricks Union Free School District who sued the school board president William J. Vitale, Jr. The families argued that the voluntary prayer written by the state board of regents to "Almighty God" contradicted their religious beliefs. Led by Steven I. Engel, a Jewish man, the plaintiffs sought to challenge the constitutionality of the state's prayer in school policy. They were supported by groups opposed to the school prayer including rabbinical organizations, Ethical Culture, and Jewish organizations. The acting parties were neither all members of a single particular religious persuasion, nor all atheists. Their religious identities were legally identified in court paperwork as two Jews, an atheist, a Unitarian church member, and a member of the New York Society for Ethical Culture. However, despite being listed in the court papers as an atheist, plaintiff Lawrence Roth, who was raised Jewish, later denied that he was an atheist and described himself as religious and a participant of prayer. When religious affiliation was discussed during preparations for the case, Roth claimed he was "a very religious person, but not a churchgoer" and that he said prayers but was unsure of what prayer could accomplish.