Cothen, Grady, president, Sunday school board, Southern Baptist Convention.. Crane, Hon. Philip M., a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois. Eisenberg, Meyer, chairman, National Law Committee, B'nai B'rith. Glasner, Rabbi Juda, Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and 188 Prepared statement 194 Gray, Alvin, American Jewish Congress. 306 Harmon, John, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Depart- 11 Prepared statement 33 Houck, Dr. John R., general secretary, Lutheran Council 289 Howard, M. William, president, National Council of the Churches of Christ in 38 (III) Howard, M. William, president, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A-Continued Page 43 496 O'Connor, Daniel J., chairman, National Americanism Commission. Malloy, C. J., executive secretary, Progressive National Baptist Convention Prepared statement 61 463 402 411 O'Reilly, William, Maryland Federation of Catholic Laity. 424 275 Prepared statement 287 Puckett, R. G., executive director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State..... 483 Prepared statement 486 Rathbun, H. Dickenson, manager, Washington office, Christian Science Committee on Publication.. 491 Prepared statement 492 Rice, Prof. Charles E., University of Notre Dame Law School 223 138 Rountree, Martha, president, Leadership Foundation 383 Prepared Statement... Sager, Prof. Lawrence, American Civil Liberties Union. 394 351 Prepared statement 352 Schwengel, Fred, a former Member of Congress from the State of Iowa........ 477 478 Warren, Rita, Christian Civil Liberties Union, Inc....... 442 Williams, David N., assistant manager, Christian Science Committee on Publication.... 491 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL Dershowitz, Nathan Z., counsel, American Jewish Council, prepared statement..... 308 H. Con. Res. 106. 467 Organizations joined in united effort to restore prayer in public schools 427 12 APPENDIXES Appendix No. 1.-Additional statements and selected correspondence. Appendix No. 3.-Materials prepared by the American Law Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress 505 604 832 PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND BUILDINGS-FEDERAL COURT JURISDICTION TUESDAY, JULY 29, 1980 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:10 a.m. in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert W. Kastenmeier (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Kastenmeier, Danielson, Mazzoli, Gudger, Harris, Glickman, McClory, Railsback, and Sawyer. Staff present: Timothy A. Boggs, professional staff member, and Thomas E. Mooney, associate counsel. Mr. KASTENMEIER. The subcommittee will come to order. We are convened this morning to begin hearings on legislation relating to prayers in the public schools. As with many issues of a constitutional dimension, this issue has generated strongly held views in many quarters of our society. However, unlike most important legal issues in which a consensus is eventually reached, the issue of prayers in the school seems to remain active and vital to many persons. Every member of this subcommittee has received hundreds, if not thousands, of appeals from voters and citizens, on both sides of this issue. Frankly, I don't believe that the recent correspondence and public debate up to this point has been sufficiently thoughtful or instructive. It is my sincere hope and intention that this series of hearings will help raise the level of debate and the quality of discourse on this important topic. With this in mind, with your indulgence, I would like to briefly review the state of the law and the legislation before us today. The first amendment provides in part that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." In 1941 the Supreme Court held these two clauses to limit State power as well as that of Congress. Since then the Court has been repeatedly confronted with cases requiring it to determine the meaning of the first amendment clauses in such matters as shared time programs for religious instruction of public school children, religiously based restrictions on the public school curricula, Sunday closing laws, the Amish withdrawal of children from public schools, public aid to parochial education and an issue facing us in Congress again today, prayer in public schools. In 1962 in the first important prayer case, Engel v. Vitale, the Court was confronted with a requirement of the New York State Board of Regents that each class in the presence of a teacher, say aloud at the beginning of each school day the following prayer: Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country. A year later in an equally important case, Abington School District v. Schempp, the Court faced a Pennsylvania statute requiring the reading of at least 10 verses of the Bible at the beginning of each school day and a recognized school practice of following that reading with the unison recital of the Lord's Prayer. With only one Justice in disagreement, the Court struck down these State laws and ordered the practice of organized prayer in public schools stopped. In the Pennsylvania case Justice Clark concluded for the Court: The Bible-reading exercises are religious exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the first amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion. In both of these opinions the Court did particularly scholarly research into the meaning and intent of the "establishment clause" of the first amendment, looking at both colonial and preconstitutional history. The Court found two broad purposes behind the establishment clause: Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. The establishment clause thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy to permit its "unhallowed perversion" by a civil magistrate. The second purpose rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand. Justice Clark in the Pennsylvania case agreed with these conclusions and said that taken together with the "free exercise clause" the establishment clause imposes on Government a "wholesome neutrality" toward religion. It can neither favor one sect over all others, nor religion generally over nonreligion, nor nonreligion over religion. A serious attempt in 1971 to amend the Constitution to overturn this view failed in Congress and now, in 1980, we are faced with a new challenge to the integrity of the first amendment. Senator Jesse Helms has authored an amendment to a minor judicial reform bill which would have the effect of eliminating the authority of the Supreme Court and other Federal courts to make rulings regarding the constitutionality of any State laws or regulations which relate to prayer in public schools or buildings. This amendment was agreed to by the Senate as part of a legislative compromise designed to save the legislation creating the Department of Education. This legislation raises several serious constitutional and policy questions which I hope we can focus on during these hearings. First, the Helms amendment could well pave the way for some State courts to try to overturn the Supreme Court's clear judgment that the Government has no business in religion. Conceivable this could result in 50 interpretations of the meaning of the first amendment. It must be determined if this would square with the |