184. Everson v. Board Of Education (1947) : The Underground History of
American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org
Everson
v. Board Of Education (1947)
The
Supreme Court decision Everson v. Board of Education 330 U.S. 1. (1947) prepared the dismissal of religion from American
public schools. We are hidden by more than a
half-century from the shock and numbness this new doctrine of
"separation of church and
state" occasioned, a great bewilderment caused in part by the
absence of any hint of such a separation
doctrine in the Declaration, Constitution, or the Bill of Rights.
The Court, which erected the wall of
separation, went on to radically change the entire face of American jurisprudence, establishing
firmly a principle which had only operated
spottily in the past, the "judicial review" power which made
the judiciary final arbiter of which
laws were legal. No longer could the people's representatives expect that
by working for legislation, their will
would be honored by the courts. A new and higher power had spoken, a power with the ability to
dispense with religion in government
facilities, including schools and the towns and villages of America
where public property was
concerned.
Everson was no simple coup d'etat, but an act
of Counter- Reformation warfare aimed at
the independent and dissenting Protestant-Christian traditions of
America. To understand the scope of this
campaign, you have to look at a selection of court decisions to appreciate the range of targets Everson was
intended to hit:
Item: A verbal prayer offered in a school is
unconstitutional, even if it is both
denominationally neutral and voluntarily participated in. Engel v.
Vitale, 1962; Abington v. Schempp, 1963;
Commissioner of Ed. v. School Committee ofLeyden, 1971.
Item: Freedom of speech and press is
guaranteed to students unless the topic is religious, at which time such speech becomes
unconstitutional. Stein v. Oshinsky, 1965; Collins v. Chandler Unified School District, 1981.
Item: If a student prays over lunch, it is
unconstitutional for him to pray aloud. Reed v.
van Hoven, 1965.
Item: It is unconstitutional for kindergarten
students to recite: "We thank you for the birds that sing; We thank you [God] for
everything," even though the word "God" is not uttered. DeSpain v. DeKalb County Community
School District, 1967 '.
Item: It is unconstitutional for a war
memorial to be erected in the shape of a cross. Lowe v. City of Eugene, 1969.
Item: It is unconstitutional for students to
arrive at school early to hear a student
volunteer read prayers. State Board of Ed. v. Board of Ed. ofNetcong,
1970.
Item: It is unconstitutional for a Board
of Education to use or refer to the word "God" in any of its official writings. State v.
Whisner, 1976.
Item: It is unconstitutional for a
kindergarten class to ask during a school assembly whose birthday is celebrated by Christmas. Florey
v. Sioux Falls School District, 1979.
Item: It is unconstitutional for the Ten
Commandments to hang on the walls of a
classroom. Stone v. Graham, 1980; Ring v. Grand Forks Public School
District, 19^; Lannerv. Wimmer,
1981.
Item: A bill becomes unconstitutional even
though the wording may be constitutionally
acceptable, if the legislator who introduced the bill had a religious
activity in his mind when he authored
it. Wallace v. Jaffree, 1984.
Item: It is unconstitutional for a
kindergarten class to recite: "God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food." Wallace
v. Jaffree, 1984.
Item: It is unconstitutional for a graduation
ceremony to contain an opening or closing
prayer. Graham v. Central Community School District, 1985; Disselbrett
v. Douglas School District, 1986.
Item: In the Alaska public schools in 1987,
students were told that they could not use the
word "Christmas" in school because it had the word
"Christ" in it.
Item: In Virginia, a federal court ruled
in 1987 that homosexual newspapers may be
distributed on a high school campus, but religious newspapers may not
be.
Item: In 1987, a 185-year-old symbol of a
Nevada city had to be changed because of its
"religious significance."
Item: In 1988, an elementary school principal
in Denver removed the Bible from the
school library.
Item: In Colorado Springs, 1993, an elementary
school music teacher was prevented from
teaching Christmas carols because of alleged violations of the separation
of church and state.
Item: In 1996, ten-year-old James Gierke,
of Omaha, was prohibited from reading his
Bible silently during free time in the Omaha schools.
Item: In 1996, the chief administrative
judge of Passaic County, New Jersey, ruled juries could no longer be sworn in using the
Bible.
Item: In 2000, Ohio's state motto,
"With God, all things are possible," was ruled unconstitutional by the 6th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals because it expressed "a
uniquely Christian thought."
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