Title: School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
Headings: School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
Why Johnny Can't Pray -- At School
School Prayer Declared Unconstitutional
How the Supreme Court Decide Issues of Religion in Government
The Lemon Test
The Coercion Test
The Endorsement Test
Church and State Controversy Will Not Go Away
The Roots of 'Separation of Church and State

Content: In the United States, church and state—the government—must remain separate according to the “ establishment clause ” of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...”
Basically, the establishment clause prohibits federal, state and local governments from displaying religious symbols or conducting religious practices on or in any property under the control of those governments, like courthouses, public libraries, parks and, most controversially, public schools. While the establishment clause and the constitutional concept of separation of church and state have been used over the years to force governments to remove things like the Ten Commandments and nativity scenes from their buildings and grounds, they have more famously been used to force the removal of prayer from America’s public schools. School Prayer Declared Unconstitutional
In parts of America, regular school prayer was practiced until 1962, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Engel v. Vitale, ruled it unconstitutional. In writing the Court's opinion, Justice Hugo Black cited the "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment: "It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. ... Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause ... 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 Establishment Clause thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its 'unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate..."
In the case of Engel v. Vitale, the Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9 in New Hyde Park, New York directed that the following prayer must be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country." The parents of 10 school children brought the action against the Board of Education challenging its constitutionality. In their decision, the Supreme Court did indeed find the requirement of the prayer to be unconstitutional.