- The First Amendment to the Constitution reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"4
- The Butler Act, passed in Tennessee in 1925, prohibited teachers in public schools from saying that the Biblical account of the origin of man was wrong, and prohibited them from saying that man had descended from animals of "lower order"6
- In the end, this prohibited the teaching of evolution and did not allow teachers to deny Biblical stories6
- High school teacher John Scopes intentionally taught a chapter of evolution from a textbook after the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) pledged to defend him and fund his case7
- Scopes lost the legal aspect of the case but won in terms of public opinion and the general populace turned in favor of evolution7
- Further laws attempting to teach religion failed
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- The Engel vs Vitale case in 1962 was between the New Hyde Park public school system in New York and 10 parents complaining about a mandatory, twenty-two word nondenominational prayer that had been approved to say in schools every morning8
- The Board of Education instated the prayer as part of of a "Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools"9
- The parents complained that this violated the first amendment that mandated a separation of church and state
- The defense argued that it was not mandatory to say it and that they if they were stopped from doing it, the second part of their first amendment was being violated: "prohibiting the free exercise thereof"10
- The lower courts decided in favor of the schools, saying "so long as the schools did not compel any pupil to join in the prayer over his or his parents' objection", it was not a problem9
- The Supreme Court voted 7-1 (9th judge was absent) against the school and decided it was unconstitutional10
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