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The Battle Over School Prayer - How Engel v. Vitale Changed America (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,139
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The Battle Over School Prayer - How Engel v. Vitale Changed America (Hardcover)
Series: Landmark Law Cases and American Society
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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It has become known to many as the moment when the U.S. Supreme
Court kicked God out of the public schools, supposedly paving the
way for a decline in educational quality and a dramatic rise in
delinquency and immorality. The 6-to-1 decision in Engel v. Vitale
(1962) not only sparked outrage among a great many religious
Americans, it also rallied those who cried out against what they
perceived as a dangerously activist Court. Bruce Dierenfield has
written a concise and readable guide to the first - and still most
important - case that addressed the constitutionality of prayer in
public schools. The 22-word recitation in a Long Island school that
was challenged in Engel v. Vitale was hardly denominational - not
even overtly Christian - but a handful of parents saw it as a
violation of the First Amendment's proscription again the
establishment of religion. The case forced the Supreme Court to
take a stand on Jefferson's ""wall of separation"" between church
and state. When it did so, the Court declared that by endorsing the
prayer recitation - no matter how brief, nondenominational, or
voluntary - the Long Island school board had unconstitutionally
approved the establishment of religion in school. Writing with
impeccable fairness and sensitivity, Dierenfield sets his account
of the Engel decision in the larger historical and political
context, citing battles over a wide range of religious activities
in public schools throughout American history. He takes readers
behind the scenes at school board meetings and Court deliberations
to show real people wrestling with deeply personal issues. Through
interviews with many of the participants, he also reveals the large
price paid by the plaintiffs and their children, who were
frequently harassed both during and after the trial. For a long
time, opponents of the decision have loudly claimed that it was
based on a distorted reading of the First Amendment and deprived
Americans of their right to practice religion. Dierenfield shows
that the polarizing effect of Engel - a decision every bit as
controversial as Roe v. Wade - has reverberated through the
subsequent decades and gained intensity with the rise of the
religious right. His book helps readers understand why, even in the
face of this landmark decision, Americans remain divided on how
divided church and state should be.
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