United State Supreme Court Decisions

Reynolds v. United States 98 U.S. 145 (1878)
Davis v. Beasom 133 U.S. 333 (1890)
Meyers v. State of Nebraska 262 U.S. 390 (1923)
Pierce v. Society of Sisters 268 U.S. 510 (1925) The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.
Farrington v. Tokushige 273 U.S. 284 (1927)
Cantwell v. State of Connecticut 310 U.S. 296 (1940) The First Amendment declares that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The Fourteenth Amendment has rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to enact such laws. . . . Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts, - freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be.
Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis 310 U.S. 586 (1940)
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barrette 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 319 U.S. 105 (1943)
Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp. 330 U.S. 1 (1947) The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor [367 U.S. 488, 493] the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State." Reynolds v. United States 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1878)
McCollum v. Board of Education 333 U.S. 203 (1948) Voting 8-1 the court declared unconstitutional a released-time program in Champaign, Illinois that brought clergy and others into the public schools to offer sectarian religious instruction. Justice Hugo L. Black wrote: "To hold that a state cannot consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment's guaranty of the free exercise of religion. For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere. Or, as we said in the Everson case, the First Amendment had erected a wall between Church and State which must be kept high and impregnable." Justice Frankfurter wrote: "We are all agreed that the First and Fourteenth Amendments have a secular reach far more penetrating [367 U.S. 488, 494] in the conduct of Government than merely to forbid an `established church.'. . . We renew our conviction that `we have staked the very existence of our country on the faith that complete separation between the state and religion is best for the state and best for religion.'"
Zorach v. Clauson 343 U.S. 306 (1952) With a 6-3 vote the court upheld a reliased-time program in New York City that allowed studnets to leave the public schools during the day for religious training off-site. Justice William O. Douglas wrote: "Government may not finance religious groups nor undertake religious instruction nor blend secular and sectarian education nor use secular institutions to force one or some religion on any person. But we find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence."
Fowler v. Rhode Island 345 U.S. 67 (1953)
Torcaso v. Watkins 367 U.S. 488 (1961)
McGowan v. Maryland 366 U.S. 420(1961)
Engel v. Vitale 370 U.S. 421 (1962) In a 6-1 decision, the court decided that State-sponsored recitation of the "Regent's Prayer" by students enrolled at the New Hyde Park, N.Y., School District was unconstitutional. Justice Hugo L. Black wrote: "When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment] go much further than that. 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."
Abington School Dist. v. Schempp 374 U.S. 203 (1963) By a 7-1 vote the court struck down laws in Pennsylvania and Maryland requiring public school students to recite the Lord's Prayer and read Bible passages every day. Justice Tom. C. Clark wrote: "The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard. In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly committed to a position of neutrality."
Sherbert v. Verner 376 U.S. 398 (1963) Conditions upon public benefits cannot be sustained if they so operate, whatever their purpose, as to inhibit or deter the exercise of First Amendment freedoms.
Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479 (1965) The association of people is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Bill of Rights. The right to educate a child in a school of the parents' choice - whether public or private or parochial - is also not mentioned. Nor is the right to study any particular subject or any foreign language. Yet the First Amendment has been construed to include certain of those rights. By Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, the right to educate one's children as one chooses is made applicable to the States by the force of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. By Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, the same dignity is given the right to study the German language in a private school. In other words, the State may not, consistently with the spirit of the First Amendment, contract the spectrum of available knowledge. The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach - indeed the freedom of the entire university community. Without those peripheral rights the specific rights would be less secure. And so we reaffirm the principle of the Pierce and the Meyer cases.
Epperson v. Arkansas 393 U.S. 97 (1968) The court unanimously struck down an Arkansas law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in public universities and secondary schools. Justice Abe Fortas wrote: "Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite... While study of religions and of the Bible from a literary and historic viewpoint, presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, need not collide with the First Amendment's prohibition, the State may not adopt programs or practices in its public schools or colleges which "aid or oppose" any religion. This prohibition is absolute. It forbids alike the preference of a religious doctrine or the prohibition of theory which is deemed antagonistic to a particular dogma."
Presbyterian Church in the United States v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Memorial Presbyterian Church 393 U.S. 440 (1969)
Gillette v. United States 401 U.S. 437 (1971)
Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972)
Stone v. Graham 449 U.S. 39 (1980) With two justices dissenting, the court declared unconstitutional a Kentucky law requiring public schools to post privately funded copies of the Ten Commandments in each classroom. In an unsigned per curiam (by the court) opinion, the court majority wrote:"The pre-eminent purpose for posting the Ten Commandments on schoolroom walls is plainly religious in nature. The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact. The Commandments do not confine themselves to arguably secular matters, such as honoring one's parents, killing or murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, and covetousness. Rather, the first part of the ommandments concerns the religious duties of believers: worshipping the Lord God alone, avoiding idolatry, not using the Lord's name in vain, and observing the Sabbath Day. This is not a case in which the Ten Commandments are integrated into the school curriculum, where the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like."
Wallace v. Jaffree 472 U.S. 38 (1985) The court voted 6-3 to strike down an Alabama law requiring public schools to set aside a moment of silence for meditation or prayer. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: "Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism. But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all. This conclusion derives support not only from the interest in respecting the individual's freedom of conscience, but also from the conviction that religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of free and voluntary choice by the faithful."
Edwards v. Aguillard 482 U.S. 578 (1987) In a 7-2 decision the court invalideated a Louisiana law requiring public schools to offer "balanced treatment" between evolution and creationism. Justice William J. Brennan wrote:"Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposely be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and his or her family.
Board of Education v. Mergens 496 U.S. 226 (1990) The court voted 8-1 to uphold a federal law requiring public secondary schools to allow student-led religious clubs to meet on campus if other clubs not related to curriculum are meeting. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote: "[T]here is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect. We think that secondary school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits on a nondiscriminatory basis."
Lee v. Weisman 505 U.S. 577 (1992) With a 5-4 vote the court ruled that public schools may not sponsor invocations at graduation ceremonies. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote: "The First Amendment's Religion Clauses mean that religious beliefs and religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by the State. The design of the Constitution is that preservation and transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice committed to the private sphere, which itself is promised freedom to pursue that mission. It must not be forgotten, then, that, while concern must be given to define the protection granted to an objector or a dissenting nonbeliever, these same [Religion] Clauses exist to protect religion from government interference. James Madison, the principal author of the Bill of Rights, did not rest his opposition to a religious establishment on the sole ground of its effect on the minority. A principal ground for his view was: [E]xperience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation."
Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School v. Pico 457 U.S. 853 (1982)
Troxel et vir. v. Granville 137 Wash. 2d 1, 969 P.2d 21, affirmed. (2000)

New Hampshire Politics

P.O. Box 1120 Merrimack, NH 03054