Civil liberties are rights guaranteed to people and also protected from being taken away from government. Many Supreme Court cases have helped establish civil liberties for people. Engel v. Vitale is one of the cases, contributing to freedom of religion. 

The state of New York approved a policy that mandated the public school students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with a school-sponsored prayer before they start school each day. The pledge contains “almighty god”, which contradicted some people’s religious beliefs. As a consequence, five families of public school students including three Jewish families in New Hyde Park, New York, were dissatisfied with this piece of legislature and brought up this case because the written content by the state board of regents did not match up with the central ideas of their religion. Then, they sued the state school board president William Vitale. However, Vitale argued that the school board did not force the students to read a prayer, and it only educated students about the religious root of the country.

A Jewish man called Steven Engel who was the leading plaintiff, along with the other plaintiffs, asked the question whether the policy of school prayers was constitutional or not, based on the idea provided by the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. Then social groups which demonstrated negative opinions toward school prayer started to support the plaintiffs in this case, including rabbinical organizations, ethical culture, and Jewish organizations. The initial result was that they lost in the Supreme Court of New York state. When they eventually brought this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, six of the seven judges who voted favored the plaintiff.

The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment clearly says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. In the case of Engel v. Vitale, the New York state required public students to start the school day with a written prayer, which raised the question whether it was an establishment of religion. This policy which involved “almighty god” also hurt some groups’ religious belief, which was something that the Establishment Clause was trying to prevent. Furthermore, the Due Process Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment also emphasized the separation of church and state. The New York state’s attempt to assign prayers had broken the boundary separating church and state, which once again violated the Constitution. It was one of the first cases which involved the use of Establishment Clause as a means to ban religious activities in public school by prohibiting state officials to try to assign official prayers to public school.

Freedom of religion was further promoted by the Supreme Court case, Engel v. Vitale. States no longer have the power to require students to recite a prayer in the public schools. Public school students do not need to practice any religions which do not align with their own religious beliefs. According to CBN news, during the graduation of Canton Public Schools class of 2018, a Christian minister publicly recited a prayer. The Freedom from Religion Foundation, an organization worked to separate religion from state-sponsored events, sent a letter to Canton Public Schools demanding it to ban the similar prayer based on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and the previous Supreme Court case Engel v. Vitale. Eventually, the school’s superintendent ensured to FFRF that there would not be any prayers in the future school activities.