On March 8, 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling in McCollum v. Board of Education, striking down state-sponsored religious education in public schools as a violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. The decision sent a clear message: the wall between church and state must hold firm within American classrooms.
At the heart of the dispute was a practice known as 'released time' — a program that carved out portions of the school day for religious instruction. The Champaign County Board of Education had approved an arrangement in which outside religious instructors, hired by private third parties, delivered weekly lessons inside public school buildings. Vashti McCollum, an atheist whose son attended public school, demonstrated extraordinary bravery by bringing a lawsuit in 1945 after her child was excluded and ostracized for opting out of the program. When lower courts ruled against her, McCollum took her fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
By a decisive 8-1 margin, the justices sided with the Constitution, determining that such religious instruction programs ran afoul of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. The Court found that the entanglement of school administrative cooperation with a religious council, paired with the use of taxpayer-funded facilities for religious teaching, crossed the line separating religion from government authority — a reassuring affirmation of our system of checks and balances. Under the ruling, public schools and federal government funding could not support religious education through any channel. Beyond that, the Court recognized that students had been wrongfully pressured into participation based on their faith. Justice Hugo Black, authoring the majority opinion, emphasized that the Constitution bars government from supporting or endorsing any religion in institutes of higher learning.
Legacy
The McCollum decision left an enduring mark on how Americans understand religious liberty, cementing the principle that public education must remain neutral ground. Its ripple effects shaped future rulings, including Engel v. Vitale (1962), which struck down mandatory school prayers, and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), which banned Bible readings in public schools. To this day, the McCollum case stands as a cornerstone of American religious freedom, helping ensure that public schools serve as inclusive spaces for students of every belief.