Church-State Relations Essay
Overview
Select and examine two court rulings related to church–state interaction in the public school system.
Instructions
Write a 5–7 page paper in which you:
- Identify the key issues in the court rulings and how they have shaped public education today.
- Analyze the impact on schools, teachers, students, and the community.
- As a professional in education, explain if you agree or not with the ruling and support your response.
- Provide a citation on a reference page for the court rulings you selected.
Use at least three quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
The laws pushing for church-state separation in public schools were meant to enhance inclusivity of all religions by encouraging secularism. This paper analyses two laws on church-state interactions and their implications in the public school system today. This will be followed by a personal response to the rulings. The Lee et al. v. Weisman case resulted in the prohibition of prayer at activities sponsored by public schools. This lawsuit was filed against Robert Lee, a school principal in Rhode Island, for inviting a rabbi to perform a prayer at a graduation ceremony (Cornell law School: Legal Information Institute, n.d.). Daniel Weisman, a parent to one of the graduates, initially applied for a restraining order preventing the rabbi from speaking at the ceremony, albeit unsuccessfully. Later, he sought a permanent injunction to limit school officials from inviting clergy to do religious invocations at school ceremonies (Cornell law School: Legal Information Institute, n.d.). Weisman argued on the basis of the Establishment Clause, which prohibits the state from forming or endorsing a particular religion.
Lee was a principal at a public school, meaning the graduation was sponsored by the state. The judges therefore, ruled in favor of Weisman, arguing that the school violated the Establishment Clause. This is one of the many civil suits whose rulings have been used to guide the use of prayer in public schools to date. Notably, the judges in this case arrived at their ruling without giving consideration to the Lemon Test. The premise for this test was set in the landmark Lemon v. Kurtzman case, which determined three factors to be considered when deciding culpability under the Establishment Clause. Instead, the judges focused on whether the prayer in question had coercive connotations (Cornell law School: Legal Information Institute, n.d.). This is because graduations were viewed as a mandatory event for students who had no option but to sit through benediction (Millard, 2021). This amounted to coercion, as it was possible that students may be uncomfortable with prayers issued in a religion other than their own, but could not avoid attending their graduation ceremony.
In Edwin W. Edwards, etc., et al., Appellants v. Don Aguillard, et al., the Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana law, which allowed the teaching of creation science and the theory of evolution, violated the Establishment Clause (Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute, n.d.). The state of Louisiana had passed a law titled the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science in Public School Instruction Act,” which allowed the teaching of creation science if it was accompanied by that of the evolutionary theory. Note that schools were not coerced to teach creation science, but the law stated that if either theory was to be taught, teachers were obliged to teach the other as well. A group comprising of parents within Louisiana’s public school system, local teachers, and select religious leaders challenged the constitutionality of the Creationism Act. The defendants argued that the purpose of the Act was to protect academic freedom by promoting its secular interests (Cornell Law School: Legal Information Institute, n.d.).