19 States Oppose 66 Jewish Groups in High Court Prayer Case

The attorneys general of 19 states will line up against representatives of 66 Jewish organizations when the United Supreme Court opens hearings here tomorrow, expected to take two full days of the High Tribunal’s schedule on the constitutionality of religious exercises in the public schools.

The 19 state representatives have filed a “friend of the court” brief, seeking to uphold the constitutionality of Bible-reading requirements in the public schools of Baltimore. The Jewish organizations, led by the Synagogue Council of America and the National Community Relations Advisory Council, are arguing in a brief they filed yesterday not only against the Maryland case but also against a Pennsylvania ruling permitting the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in the public schools. Another “friend of the court” brief, opposing religious practices in the public schools, was also filed today by the American Ethical Union.

The states whose attorneys general Joined in their brief are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota and Tennessee. Their Joint brief urges the High Court to sustain a decision of the Maryland Court of Appeals that found the Bible reading measure to be constitutional.

“Reversal of the decision in this case, “the 19 states argued, “will require by necessary implication the prohibition of all public acknowledgments of the divinity and the theistic concept of our origin and end. ” A reversal would also “by necessary implication impose upon the police an atheistic or at least agnostic concept of our origin and end and will itself constitute the establishment of religion, ” the brief declared.