Wallace v. Jaffree

U.S. Case Law

472 U.S. 38 (1985), struck down a mandatory moment-of-silence statute that was intended as an alternative to requiring school prayer. The Court found that an Alabama statute authorizing schools to take time out for “meditation or prayer” violated the Constitution's ban against using state institutions to establish religion. Two years later, in Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987), the Court found that a Louisiana law requiring public schools that teach evolution to teach creationism too violated the same establishment of religion clause.