Wallace v. Jaffree

At an early stage of this litigation, the constitutionality of three Alabama statutes was questioned: (1) § 16-1-20, enacted in 1978, which authorized a 1-minute period of silence in all public schools “for meditation”;1 (2) § 16-1-20.1, enacted in 1981, which authorized a period of silence “for meditation or voluntary prayer”;2 and (3) §16-1-20.2, enacted in 1982, which authorized teachers to lead “willing students” in a prescribed prayer to “Almighty God . . . the Creator and Supreme Judge of the world.”3

*41At the preliminary-injunction stage of this case, the District Court distinguished §…