Engel V. Vitale

What happens when a state board prescribes a prayer for public school children to recite in every classroom each morning as part of its program of moral and spiritual training? This question faced the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962 when they heard arguments in Engel v. Vitale. What some observers considered to be nothing more than a school tradition became the basis of a key constitutional question dealing with religious freedom and the meaning of separation of church and state in the United States. Engel v. Vitale serves as a useful primer of an issue that remains an emotionally charged one today. Combining absorbing profiles of key litigants with carefully selected full-color photographs, extensive footnotes, and a chronology and timeline, historian Shane Mountjoy provides excellent coverage of this decisive case.