''Zorach v. Clauson'', 343 U.S. 306 (1952), was a case in which the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

allowed a school district to allow students to leave school for part of the day to receive religious instruction..

Case

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

law permitted schools to allow some students to leave school during school hours for purposes of religious instruction or practice while requiring others to stay in school. Accordingly, students in New York City were allowed to leave only on written request of their guardians but the schools did not fund or otherwise assist in the development of these programs. The Greater New York Coordinating Committee on Released Time of Jews, Protestants and Roman Catholics shared their attendance with

New York City Department of Education The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is the department of the government of New York City that manages the city's public school system. The City School District of the City of New York (or the New York City Public Schools) is t ...

to prevent students from

truancy Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorised, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will (though sometimes adults or parents will allow and/or ignore it) and usually does not refe ...

, however. Several parents sued the district for providing official sanction for religious instruction.

Decision

The Supreme Court upheld the arrangement by finding that it did not violate the

Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text ...

of the First Amendment or the

Equal Protection Clause The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal ...

of the Fourteenth Amendment because the instruction was not held within the school building and received no public funds. William O. Douglas, writing for the majority, reasoned that "this 'released time' program involves neither religious instruction in public school classrooms nor the expenditure of public funds.... The case is therefore unlike ''McCollum v. Board of Education''." Three Justices dissented from the decision;

Hugo Black Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. ...

Felix Frankfurter Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Austrian-American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, during which period he was a noted advocate of judic ...

and

Robert H. Jackson Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. He had previously served as Unit ...

considered the law unconstitutional. All three cited ''

McCollum v. Board of Education ''McCollum v. Board of Education'', 333 U.S. 203 (1948), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case related to the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system to aid religious instruction. The case was a test of the separa ...

'' (1948). and believed that the Court did not adequately distinguish between the circumstances in ''McCollum'' and the ones in ''Zorach''. Jackson's dissent was especially strong: "Today's judgment will be more interesting to students of psychology and of the judicial processes than to students of constitutional law."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zorach v. Clauson United States Supreme Court cases United States education case law 1952 in United States case law 1952 in education New York City Department of Education Establishment Clause case law Religion and education United States lawsuits United States equal protection case law United States Supreme Court cases of the Vinson Court City of New York litigation

Case

Decision

See also

References

Further reading

External links