50th anniversary of Engel v. Vitale tomorrow.

[rug]

School prayer, specifically, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country" ruled to be in violation of First Amendment.

Audio of oral rguments and text of decision at link.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1961/1961_468/

[Danmel]

1. I met Mr. Engel

I actually looked at his house when we were in the market. I was chatting with him & he asked me what I did for a living. When I told him I am a lawyer, he td me he was a plaintiff in a Supreme Court case. I already knew his name, so I said Engel vs. Vitale And we talked .for awhile. The Herricks school district is one of the best on Long Island. It was a very brave thing to do- his family was ostracized & got death threats.
He passed away last year, but he made a diffetence & left a legacy.

[rug]

2. It's interesting to hear about the actual people behind these cases.

I was picking a jury in Monroe County, Pennsylvania in a child sex case and one of the members of the jury pool asked to approach. He wanted to be excused because he was the neighbor of Megan Kanka before he moved from New Jersey.

[cbayer]

3. The Board of Regents established this?

First I have heard of it, but why would they do that?

[rug]

4. Pursuant to NY law. They cite it in Footnote 1.

[Footnote 1]

See New York Constitution, Art. V, § 4; New York Education Law, §§ 101, 120 et seq., 202, 214-219, 224, 245 et seq., 704, and 801 et seq.

You'd have to dig around 50 year plus legislative history to see when and why the NY Legislature enacted this but I suspect two reasons: 1) the general "moral" aspect of education as it existed at the time and 2) anticommunism.