The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution commands that ôCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.ö To achieve that goal, Thomas Jefferson argued for a ôwall of separation between Church and State.ö JeffersonÆs phrase has become better known than the actual text of the Constitution, particularly since 1947, when the United States Supreme Court invoked JeffersonÆs ôwallö as the ideal relationship for church and state (Tribe, 1988, pp. 1159-60). Though that phrase has always been more metaphorical than substantive, in many ways that ôwallö remains the law of the land. This paper will examine the separation of church and state, from its intellectual underpinnings to the current status of the doctrine, with particular emphasis on educational issues.
The First Amendment was written at a time when the terms ôstateö and ôchurchö were narrow and well defined in American society. Undeniably, the framersÆ foremost goal was to prohibit the establishment of a state religion, such as Lutheran Sweden, Anglican England, or Catholic Spain (Levy, 1988, p. 184). The establishment clause accomplished that aim.
The language of the establishment clause, however, goes beyond the mere prohibition of a state religion. Debate about the meaning of the clause began before ratification, but the discussion remained largely academic for most of American history. Not until the latter half of the twentieth century, after the Depression and urbanization (among other factors) had dramatically changed the nature and scope of the state, did the separation of church and state become relevant. Government had become pervasive, involved in nearly every facet of American life, from education to employment, and that inevitably implicated the establishment clause (Tribe, 1988, pp. 1154-55).
The concept of ôchurchö also has changed dramatically, expanding from a handful ...