Editing Wallace v. Jaffree (section)

== Decision ==
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3<ref name="20201105WVJEncyclopædiaBritannica">{{cite web |author1=Malila N. Robinson |title=Wallace v. Jaffree |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Wallace-v-Jaffree |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |access-date=November 5, 2020 |ref=November 5, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105175148/https://www.britannica.com/event/Wallace-v-Jaffree|archive-date=November 5, 2020}}</ref> that the Alabama laws from 1981 and 1982 violated the US Constitution,<ref name="20201105WVJEncyclopædiaBritannica" /> but it upheld the law from 1978 that enabled a minute of silence for meditation in public schools of Alabama.<ref name="20201105WVJEncyclopædiaBritannica" /> Justice [[John Paul Stevens]] wrote the [[majority opinion]] and was joined by Justices [[William J. Brennan, Jr.]], [[Thurgood Marshall]], [[Harry Blackmun]], and [[Lewis F. Powell, Jr.|Lewis Powell]]. Justice Powell wrote a separate concurring opinion, and Justice [[Sandra Day O'Connor]] wrote an opinion [[Concurring opinion|concurring in the judgment]]. [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] [[Warren E. Burger]] and Associate Justices [[William H. Rehnquist]] (later Chief Justice) and [[Byron White]] each issued a [[dissenting opinion]]. Rehnquist asserted that the Court's reasoning was flawed inasmuch as it was based on the writings of [[Thomas Jefferson]], who was not the author of the Establishment Clause.

The Court first noted that "the proposition that the several States have no greater power to restrain the individual freedoms protected by the First Amendment than does the [[United States Congress|Congress of the United States]]" is "firmly embedded in our [[United States constitutional law|constitutional jurisprudence]]" and that "the First Amendment was adopted to curtail the power of Congress to interfere with the individual's freedom to believe, to worship, and to express himself in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience." The "[[Lemon v. Kurtzman|Lemon Test]]," which had been created by the Court to determine whether legislation violates the [[Establishment Clause]], included as a factor that "the statute must have a secular legislative purpose." The Court further held in ''Jaffree'' that "the First Amendment requires that a statute must be invalidated if it is entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion."

The record in the case shows that the Alabama law "was not motivated by any clearly secular purpose" but also that "indeed, the statute had ''no'' secular purpose." With no secular purpose behind the law, which expanded a previous law that already allowed for meditation so that it now explicitly included "voluntary prayer" as well, the only possible conclusion was that the new law had been passed "for the sole purpose of expressing the State's endorsement of prayer activities for one minute at the beginning of each school-day."

"Such an endorsement is not consistent with the established principle that the government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion" and so the Court ruled in favor of Jaffree and upheld the Eleventh Circuit's decision.