Street Law Project
Artist Statement
Our political cartoon was inspired by the Engel v. Vitale (1962) trial. In the New York school system, each day began with a nondenominational prayer acknowledging dependence upon God. However, school initiated-prayer in the public school system violates religious freedom protected in the First Amendment. This routine was challenged in Court as an unconstitutional state establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment. The first amendment is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that forbids Congress from interfering with a citizen's freedom of religion, speech, assembly, petition, or press. In the Engel v. Vitale trial students who came from an A-religious, Atheist, or other religions not based upon a “god” figure felt that their First Amendment rights were being violated. The Supreme Court agreed, stating that the government could not harbor such religious activities.
Project Reflection
In this mini project students were asked to create an exhibition piece to demonstrate one of three things; what are your rights as a free thinking adult? What are you rights as a student in school? Lastly, what your rights when you are in\apportioning an automobile. Many students created songs, political cartoons, posters and pamphlets.
I connected to this mini project from a personal experience when I was asked but not demanded to restate the Pledge Of Allegiance in the public school system. Our (Sienna Wells and I) political cartoon was inspired by the Engel v. Vitale (1962) trial. In the New York school system, each day began with a nondenominational prayer acknowledging dependence upon God. However, school initiated-prayer in the public school system violates religious freedom protected in the First Amendment. This routine was challenged in Court as an unconstitutional state establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment. The first amendment is an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that forbids Congress from interfering with a citizen's freedom of religion, speech, assembly, petition, or press. In the Engel v. Vitale trial students who came from an A-religious, Atheist, or other religions not based upon a “god” figure felt that their First Amendment rights were being violated. The Supreme Court agreed, stating that the government could not harbor such religious activities. However, in my experience students were still being asked to restate the prayer, this puzzled me as a middle schooler with no denominational religion. This experience lead me to insist in this topic and a desire to learn deeper.
If I could explore one aspect of this project further I would explore how students around the world feel\experience this type of topic. Do they have to express any type of religion while in school? Are they aloud to if they wish? This topic insists me because I have often questioned if more religious society's feel the sense of freedom I do. I feel exploring this would aloud me to understand a sense of how the global community feels about this topic.