The U.S. Supreme Court this week approved (6-3) the practice of releasing children from school classes for religious instruction, provided the instruction is held outside the schools. In upholding such a one-hour-a-week "released time" program in New York, the court cut a passage through the "wall of separation between church and state" which it resoundingly proclaimed in the 1948 McCollum case in Champaign, Ill. (TIME, March 22, 1948).
"In the McCollum case, the classrooms were used for religious instruction, and the force of the public school was used to promote that instruction," wrote Associate Justice William O. Douglas for...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
