Case Name: In the Matter of Steven I. Engel et al., Appellants, v. William J. Vitale, Jr., et al., Constituting the Board of Education of Union Free School District Number Nine, New Hyde Park, New York, Respondents. Henry Hollenberg et al., Intervenors-Respondents
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1961-07-07
Citations: 10 N.Y.2d 174
Docket Number: 
Parties: In the Matter of Steven I. Engel et al., Appellants, v. William J. Vitale, Jr., et al., Constituting the Board of Education of Union Free School District Number Nine, New Hyde Park, New York, Respondents. Henry Hollenberg et al., Intervenors-Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 174–192

Head Matter:
In the Matter of Steven I. Engel et al., Appellants, v. William J. Vitale, Jr., et al., Constituting the Board of Education of Union Free School District Number Nine, New Hyde Park, New York, Respondents. Henry Hollenberg et al., Intervenors-Respondents.
Argued May 25, 1961;
decided July 7, 1961.
William J. Butler, Stanley Geller and Peter B. Schwarzkopf for appellants.
I. The orders of the courts below should be reversed and the petition herein granted on the authority of the most recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals to the effect that religious instruction and practice carried on inside public schools and under the aegis of the public school system violate the Federal and State Constitutions. (Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U. S. 1; McCollum v. Board of Educ., 333 U. S. 203; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306.) H. The prayer violates the “ establishment ” clause of the Federal Constitution. III. The prayer violates the “ freedom ” clause of the Federal and State Constitutions. (Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U. S. 483.) IV. The theory of Special Term that the prayer, if said as indicated in the opinion of the court, is constitutional, because prayer is an integral part of our ‘1 national heritage ’ ’ and because prayer in public schools was an accepted practice at the time of the adoption of the First and the Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, disregards both the historical background of those amendments and the factual situation presented by the present proceeding. V. If the order appealed from is not reversed and the petition herein granted on the authority of Everson, McCollum and Zorach, the order appealed from should be reversed and the case remanded for a trial by jury on the issues of fact, particularly the issue as to whether or not the prayer is sectarian and thus violative of the State Constitution.
Bertram B. Daiker and Wilford E. Neier for respondents.
I. Recognition of Almighty God is an integral part of our national heritage. (Doremus v. Board of Educ., 5 N. J. 435, 342 U. S. 429.) II. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Constitution of the State of New York is capable of being so interpreted as to call for the so-called wall of separation of church and State to become an iron curtain. (Zorach v. Clauson, 303 N. Y. 161, 343 U. S. 306; Matter of Lewis v. Allen, 5 Misc 2d 68.) III. Judicial, legislative, administrative and text writers have agreed that what the framers of the First Amendment had in mind did not project the so-called wall of separation of church and State into a 1‘ governmental hostility to religion ’ ’ which would be “at war with our national tradition ”. (People ex rel. Lewis v. Graves, 245 N. Y. 198; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306.) IV. A few seconds of prayer in the schools, acknowledging dependence on Almighty God, is consistent with our heritage of “ securing ” the blessings of freedom which are recognized in both the Federal and State Constitutions as having emanated from Almighty God; and distortions of alleged constitutional principles contained in the petition cannot negate this right of recognition. (Doremus v. Board of Educ., 5 N. J. 435, 342 U. S. 429; Adler v. Metropolitan El. Ry. Co., 138 N. Y. 173; Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447; Drozda v. Bassos, 260 App. Div. 408; Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333; Board of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 625; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; McCollum v. Board of Educ., 333 U. S. 203; 64th St. Residences v. City of New York, 4 N Y 2d 268; Butchers’ Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746.) V. Petitioners have demonstrated that the issue was solely one of law for the court and that there are no triable issues of fact. (Lewis v. Board of Educ. of City of N. Y., 157 Misc. 520; Matter of Zorach v. Clauson, 198 Misc. 631.)
Porter R. Chandler, Thomas J. Ford and Richard E. Nolan for intervenors-respondents.
The Regents prayer is an embodiment of traditional public prayer. Voluntarily recited, it represents a reasonable and proper accommodation of the spiritual needs of our people and, as such, does not violate either the Federal or State Constitution. The courts below correctly held that prayer is an integral part of our national heritage and tradition. (Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 150; Matter of Lewis v. Allen, 5 Misc 2d 68,11 A D 2d 447.) II. The First Amendment was intended to reflect rather than disturb settled customs and practices. (State of Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. [37 U. S.] 657; United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605; Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61; Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. [22 U. S.] 1; Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583; Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516; Matter of Carey v. Morton, 297 N. Y. 361; Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97.) III. Contemporaneous and subsequent legislation likewise support the interpretation of the First Amendment by the courts below. (Hampton & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394; Stuart v. Laird, 1 Cranch [5 U. S.] 299; Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52; M’Culloch v. State of Maryland, 4 Wheat. [17 U. S.] 316; People ex rel. Lewis v. Graves, 245 N. Y. 195; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Lewis v. Board of Educ. of City of N. Y., 247 App. Div. 106, 276 N. Y. 490.) IV. The adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the States certain portions of the Bill of Rights but was not intended to alter the scope or meaning of the First Amendment insofar as it concerned religion. (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U. S. 121; Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319.) V. Judicial interpretation of relevant constitutional provisions does not bar the Regents prayer. The Regents prayer does not constitute an establishment of religion. (Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U. S. 1; McCollum v. Board of Educ., 333 U. S. 203; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Moore v. Monroe, 64 Iowa 367; Billard v. Board of Educ., 69 Kan. 53; Hackett v. Brooksville Graded School Dist., 120 Ky. 608; Church v. Bullock, 104 Tex. 1; Wilkerson v. City of Rome, 152 Ga. 762; State ex rel. Dearle v. Frazier, 102 Wash. 369.) VI. Appellants’ claim that the Regents prayer violates the “ free exercise ” clause is unfounded. (Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U. S. 483.) VII. Appellants seek, under the cloak of the First Amendment, to coerce the vast majority into subservience to their demand. The invalidation of the Regents prayer would violate the constitutional rights of intervenors-respondents to the “ free exercise ” of their beliefs. Appellants have no right to coerce others into accepting their views. (Board of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624; Barnette v. West Virginia State Bd. of Educ., 47 F. Supp. 251; Matter of Lewis v. Allen, 5 Misc 2d 68, 11 A D 2d 447; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Lewis v. Board of Educ. of City of N. Y., 157 Misc. 520; Hardwick v. Board of School Trustees, 54 Cal. App. 696; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390.) VIII. God-fearing parents have a right to insist that their children should not be forced into a mold of complete secularism in the public schools. IX. No triable issue of fact is here presented and accordingly there is no need for a jury trial.
Charles A. Brind, John P. Jehu, Elizabeth M. Eastman and George B. Farrington for Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, amicus curiae.
The use of the recommended prayer by respondent school board is not in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America nor of the Constitution of the State of New York. (Matter of Lewis v. Allen, 5 Misc 2d 68, 11 A D 2d 447; Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Bolling v. Superior Court, 16 Wn. [2d] 373; Board of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624; People v. Sandstrom, 279 N. Y. 523.)
Mervin H. Riseman, Henry Edward Schultz, Arnold Forster, Paul Hartman, Theodore Leskes, Edwin J. Lukas and Sol Rabkin for American Jewish Committee and another, amici curia.
I. The resolution of a public school board directing the recitation of a prayer as daily procedure in the public schools violates the constitutional prohibition against an establishment of religion. (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U. S. 1; McCollum v. Board of Educ., 333 U. S. 203; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Schempp v. School Dist. of Abington Twp., Pa., 177 F. Supp. 398, 364 U. S. 298.) II. The program is unconstitutional even though not compulsory. (Tudor v. Board of Educ. of Rutherford, 14 N. J. 31; People ex rel. Ring v. Board of Educ., 245 Ill. 334; State ex rel. Weiss v. District Bd., 76 Wis. 177.) III. Various religious practices not involving public schools are not legal precedents for this case. (Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306; Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447.)

Opinion:
Chief Judge Desmond.
In 1951 and again in 1955 the Board of Regents, governing body of our State public school system, recommended to all local school boards that " at the commencement of each school day the act of allegiance to the Flag might well be joined with this act of reverence to God: ' Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country ' ' '. In 1958 the respondents, who are the board members of a public school district in Nassau County, conformed to the Regents' recommendation and gave instructions to the teaching staff to adopt the practice in the district's schools. Petitioners, taxpayers in the district and parents of children attending the schools and all (except one " non-believer ") being members of various religious bodies, brought this proceeding for an order directing the board to discontinue the practice. They assert that it is unlawful because of the prohibitions of the First Amendment ("no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ") and the command of section 3 of article I of our State Constitution (" The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever be allowed in this state to all mankind").
The order here appealed from contains adequate provisions to insure that no pupil need take part in or be present during the act of reverence, so any question of " compulsion " qv " free exercise " is out of the case (see Zorach v. Claus on, 343 U. S. 306).
What remains of appellants ' argument is this: that the saying of the " Regents prayer " as a daily school exercise is a form of State-sponsored religious education and is accordingly an unconstitutional "establishment of religion". If the utterance of these reverential words was " religious education ", then providing such education would be so far beyond the powers of a public school board as to be wholly arbitrary and unlawful, so that the courts would need no constitutional warrant for forbidding it. But it is not "religious education" nor is it the practice of or establishment of religion in any reasonable meaning of those phrases. Saying this simple prayer may be, according to the broadest possible dictionary definition, an act of " religion ", but when the Founding Fathers prohibited an '1 establishment of religion ' ' they were referring to official adoption of, or favor to, one or more sects. They could not have meant to prohibit mere professions of belief in God for, if that were so, they themselves in many ways were violating their rule when and after they adopted it. Not only is this prayer not a violation of the First Amendment (no decision of this or of the United States Supreme Court says or suggests that it is) but a holding that it is such a violation would be in defiance of all American history, and such a holding would destroy a part of the essential foundation of the American governmental structure.
The " Regents prayer " is an acknowledgment of our dependence upon Almighty God and a petition for the bestowal of His blessings. It includes an acknowledgment of the existence of a Supreme Being just as does the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutions of each of the 50 States of the Union, including our own. In construing even a Constitution some attention must be paid to the obvious intent of those who drafted it and adopted it (Matter of Carey v. Morton, 297 N. Y. 361). That the First Amendnient was ever intended to forbid as an " establishment of religion ' ' a simple declaration of belief in God is so contrary to history as to be impossible of acceptance. No historical fact is so easy to prove by literally countless illustrations as the fact that belief and trust in a Supreme Being was from the beginning and has been continu ously part of the very essence of the American plan of government and society. The references to the Deity in the Declaration of Independence; the words of our National Anthem: " In God is our trust ' '; the motto on our coins; the daily prayers in Congress; the universal practice in official oaths of calling upon God to witness the truth; the official thanksgiving proclamations beginning with those of the Continental Congress and the First Congress of the United States and continuing till the present; the provisions for chaplaincies in the armed forces; the directions by Congress in modern times for a National Day of Prayer and for the insertion of the words " under God " in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag; innumerable solemn utterances by our Presidents and other leaders — all these and many more make historically unescapable the flat statement in Zorach v. Clauson (343 U. S. 306, 313, supra [1952]) that: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being ", which paraphrased the Supreme Court's similar assertion in 1892 in the Holy Trinity Church case (Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U. S. 457). As Justice Beldock of the Appellate Division wrote in this case: " The contention that acknowledgments of and references to Almighty God are acceptable and desirable in all other phases of our public life but not in our public schools is, in my judgment, an attempt to stretch far beyond its breaking point the principle of separation of church and State and to obscure one's vision to the universally accepted tradition that ours is a Nation founded and nurtured upon belief in God."
The " universally accepted tradition " referred to by Justice Beldock has been maintained without break from the days of the Founding Fathers, all of whom believed in the existence of God (see Cousins, In God We Trust), to the day of the inauguration of President Kennedy. It is an indisputable and historically provable fact that belief and trust in a Creator has always been regarded as an integral and inseparable part of the fabric of our fundamental institutions. It is not a matter of majority power or minority protection. Belief in a Supreme Being is as essential and permanent a feature of the American governmental system as is freedom of worship, equality under the law and due process of law. Like them it is an American absolute, an application of the natural law beliefs on which the Republic was founded and which in turn presuppose an Omnipotent Being.
The motives and purposes of the Regents and of the local board are noble. The success of the practice is problematical. But there is no problem of constitutionality.
The order should be affirmed, without costs.