Fourteenth Amendment Commons^™

Constitutional Law—Fourteenth Amendment—Religious Education—Validity Of Released Time Programs, Raymond H. Siderius

Washington Law Review

In 1948 the Supreme Court (8-1) held invalid under the 14th Amendment a system adopted by the Illinois Board of Education which permitted students, on written request of their parents, to be released during regular school hours for religious instruction or devotion in the public school buildings. McCollum v. Board of Education 333 U.S. 203, 2 A.L.R. 2d 1338 (1948). Under these so-called "released time" plans, non-participating children remain in the classroom and continue some form of secular study. Since the majority opinion in the McCollum case relied in part upon the metaphorical "wall of separation between Church and State," …