Two national Jewish organizations have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a federal appeals court ruling that a New Jersey law requiring state school employees to direct a moment of silence in public school classrooms is unconstitutional.
The briefs were filed in the case of Karcher v. May by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Congress, both of which maintain that the New Jersey legislation was enacted “solely for religious purposes” to circumvent the separation clause which bans organized prayer in public schools.
The AJCongress brief was signed by the American Jewish Committee, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, People for the American Way and the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, an umbrella group representing 125 Jewish communal organizations.
The ADL was joined in its brief by Americans for Religious Liberty, a national educational organization defending religious liberty.
Meyer Eisenberg, chairman of the ADL’s Law Committee, said the New Jersey statute was the latest of many attempts by the state legislature to put prayer back into its public schools. The state “is not permitted to legislate a substitute for vocal prayer,” Eisenberg said. “To the extent the New Jersey moment of silence law has this very purpose — to substitute for organized vocal prayer in our public schools — it intends to endorse and does endorse prayer and religions,” he added.
The AJCongress brief cited 18 previous attempts by the new Jersey legislature to circumvent Supreme Court rulings holding public school prayer unconstitutional. “This case presents, in stark relief, the question whether it is the business of government to encourage or promote religious observance,” the brief states.
The legislation, enacted in 1982, was the subject of a suit brought against the State of New Jersey in federal court by a teacher and several parents who claimed it was unconstitutional. The district court ruled against the state. New Jersey officials appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court decision. The state then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear it.
The brief points out that New Jersey school children are not now prohibited from praying privately during their free time at school, so that the creation by the government of a scheduled silent period proceeds beyond accommodation of religion, as required by the Constitution, and constitutes an endorsement of religion, which is constitutionally prohibited.
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