Constitutional Expert Upholds Supreme Court Prayer Ruling

A Harvard University authority on constitutional law declared here yesterday that the United States Supreme Court had been correct in banning as unconstitutional the New York Regents prayer for public schools, but had done so “for the wrong reasons.”

The prayer should have been outlawed as an abridgement of religious liberty, rather than as a violation of the principle of church-state separation, Professor Paul A. Freund told 200 members of the national governing council of the American Jewish Congress at the closing session of the council’s two-day meeting here.

Professor Freund said that, while the prayer ceremony in New York schools was “in form voluntary, the atmosphere of the school room and the conformist psychology of school children are such that, in a meaningful and realistic sense, such exercises are in fact coercive. They are thus interferences with the free exercise of religion.”

Warning that Americans were “not at liberty to undermine the institutions of the courts by reckless criticism charging bad motives and usurpation of power.” Prof. Freund also cautioned against expecting the courts “to do our work for us in the field of civil rights and civil liberties.” Adding that there were areas which “must be left to the forces of community sentiment and public policy, ” he said such organizations as the American Jewish Congress played “a key role in maintaining and fostering an open society.”

PRINZ RAPS THOSE WHO RAISE FALSE FEARS OF RELIGIOUS CONFLICT

Dr. Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, told the meeting that Jews could not hope to escape anti-Semitism by remaining silent on controversial issues, such as religious practices in the public schools. He criticized “men of little faith in freedom” who, he said, had “raised false fears of religious conflict” because Jewish groups vigorously supported the Supreme Court decision banning the New York regents prayer.

Dr. Prinz condemned the holding up “of the spectre of increased anti-Semitism” because of that support, and charged that “such fears and anxieties betray not only a failure to recognize the nature of anti-Semitism but also a misreading of the American temper and spirit.” For the Jew as a citizen “to forfeit one iota of his duties and rights as an American citizen,” he added, “is a throwback to the ghetto mentality of the European past, and it can serve only to hinder Jewish progress and full Jewish participation in the public life of this nation.”

The AJC head asserted that, since anti-Semitism was not “a logical proposition,” nothing that Jews do or do not do “will impress the anti-Semite or dissuade him from being what he is and from holding those prejudices which are part of the emotional and often irrational make-up,” He added that “the true security of the Jewish community lies not in fearing to speak up, but in standing up for what we believe is fair and just and right.”