Engel V. Vitale essays

Engel V. Vitale essays The year is 1962, and the Supreme Court is about to make a landmark ruling, concerning the constitutionality of faculty lead prayer in school. Democratic President John F. Kennedy is in his second year of his term. Many Americans saw the Kennedy administration as a liberal Presidency that was moderately pro-civil rights, and suspected that some changes would come during this term. The civil rights movement had been gaining more ground in ten years than it had in the past fifty. The landmark court decision Brown v. The Board of Education (1954) had outlawed public education segregation. Yet in 1957, the U.S. Armies 101st Division had to be brought in to desegregate Little Rock, Arkansas highschool to allow nine black teenagers to be educated in the predominantly white facility. So schools in the United States had been experiencing significant change before the Engel ruling. In 1962, the U.S. was still engaged in a bitter arms-race against the Soviet Union, with barely a year passing since the U.S.S.R. had successfully detonated a nuclear bomb. Tensions between the two countries had already been intensifying, particularly over the issue of Cuba. Cuba, just ninety miles south of the Florida coast was controlled by Communist dictator Fidel Castro. To the U.S., Cubas relations with the U.S.S.R. was perceived to be an escalating threat to U.S. security. In February of 62, the U.S. announced a trade embargo on all Cuban products and travel. Cuba was not happy with the U.S. either before or after. On April 17, 1961, a botched attempt to invade Cuba, later named the Bay of Pigs left Cuba immensely distrusting of its northern neighbor. While over in Europe, western relations with the Soviet Union greatly degraded because of the erection of the Berlin wall in August, 1961. With the possibility of a nuclear war against the last two superpowers, the majority of Americans felt it was their duty to line up behi...