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First Amendment
The First Amendment specified that "Congress shall make no las respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." -
West Virginia v. Barnette
The Supreme Court said that students may not be required to salute the flag. -
Emerson v. Board of Education
The first major establishment clause decision that the government must be neutral toward religion. -
McCollum v. Bd. or Educ.
The practice of setting aside time in school during school hours for religious instruction was declared unconstitutional. -
Zorach v. Clausen
Schools could have "release time" religious education. This is where the instruction took place off school grounds. Many teachers, however, find that it disrupts their planned instructional programs. -
Engle v. Vitale
The Supreme Court declared that schoo-sponsored prayer and/or Bible reading violated the establishment clause. -
Epperson v. Arkansas
The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Arkansas antievolution statute under the establishment clause, holding that evolution theory is a science and a state cannot restrict such teaching in favor of a religious preference. -
Lemon v. Kurtzman
The Supreme Court announced a three-part test to evaluate the establishment clause claims in this case. -
Wisconsin v. Yoder
This was the best-known case involving a free exercise claim involving the Amish. Children could stop going to school after they completed the eighth grade -
Wallace v. Jaffee
The Supreme Court struck down an Alabama law that inserted the phrase "or voluntary prayer" into an existing statute that authorized a period of silent meditation. -
Stone v. Graham
The Supreme Court declared a Kentuck law unconstitutional that required the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. -
Mozert v. Hawkins Cnty. Bd. of Educ.
Parents were unsuccessful in their attempt to have their children excused from reading a basal reading series in the elementary schools in a Tennessee school district. -
Lee v. Weisman
Rhode Island school district was declared unconstitutional by the Court as a violation of the establishment clause. -
Doe v. Madison Sch. Dist. No 321
An Idaho school district selected student speakers by class standing and allowed them to recite "an address, poem, reading, song, musical presentation, prayer, or any other pronouncement of their choosing. -
Altman v. Bedford Cent. Sch. Dist.
Parents have tried unseccessfully to exclude certain reading series for promoting witchcraft or Satanism (i.e. Harry Potter Series). In one New York case ruled in favor of parents who asserted that parts of a program offended their Catholic faith.