Practice of permitting public school students to attend classes in religious instruction offered by community volunteers during regular school hours.
Under a 1943 state law, a Champaign, Illinois, school board undertook a program whereby local clergy came into public school buildings to offer religious instruction for one class period each week to those students whose parents consented to the exercise. For others, study hall was available. Justice Hugo L. Black, writing for the Supreme Court in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education
Wishing to avoid the same constitutional infirmity, New York state permitted its public school students to attend religious instruction classes off school grounds. Challenged in Zorach v. Clauson
Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township
Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education
Religion, establishment of
School prayer
Zorach v. Clauson