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Engel v. Vitale (1962) Answer Key

  1. A non-denominational prayer that was used to open the school day in New York public schools for much of our nation’s history.
  2. The Establishment Clause was originally added to the Constitution to keep the federal government from establishing a national religion.
  3. Challenges to religion in schools grew in the twentieth century for two reasons: The growth of public schools in the twentieth century, combined with the Supreme Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply First  Amendment limitations to the states.
  4. The Court ruled that for public schools to compose official prayers and hold formal recitation of them violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Court reasoned that this practice constituted a government religious program, and that it was not the government’s job to compose official prayers and encourage students to say them.
  5. Answers will vary. Some will agree with Justice Stewart, saying that since students were not forced to say the prayer, that government had not truly established a religion. Furthermore, they may say, the non-denominational prayer was an acknowledgement and expression of the country’s religious heritage. Others will disagree with Justice Stewart, saying that the formal recitation of a state-composed prayer is an establishment of religion by government. They may say, furthermore, that no one’s wish to say the prayer was denied; all that was denied was the public school’s program of formal recitation. Students could still say the prayer individually or in groups outside of the school’s program.