Vashti McCollum
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Vashti McCollum
Vashti Cromwell McCollum (November 6, 1912 – August 20, 2006) was the plaintiff in the landmark 1948 Supreme Court case McCollum v. Board of Education, which struck down religious education in public schools. The defendant in the case was the public school district of Champaign, Illinois; instructors chosen by three religious faiths had taught religion classes within the district's schools. McCollum wrote a book on the case, ''One Woman's Fight'' (1953), became a world traveler and served two terms as president of the American Humanist Association from 1962 to 1965. She was also a signer of the Humanist Manifesto II in October 1973 and the Humanist Manifesto III in 2003. In 1948, McCollum made this statement to ''The New York Times'': "As long as the public school is used to recruit the child into any religious denomination or to segregate children as per varying religious doctrines or whose power of truancy is employed to make them attend theology classes, I'm against i ...
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University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system and was founded in 1867. Enrolling over 56,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the country. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a member of the Association of American Universities and is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". In fiscal year 2019, research expenditures at Illinois totaled $652 million. The campus library system possesses the second-largest university library in the United States by holdings after Harvard University. The university also hosts the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and is home to the fastest supercomputer on a university campus ...
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Gary, Indiana
Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the southern shore of Lake Michigan about east of downtown Chicago, Illinois. The city is adjacent to the Indiana Dunes National Park, and is within the Chicago metropolitan area. Gary was named after lawyer Elbert Henry Gary, who was the founding chairman of the United States Steel Corporation. U.S. Steel had established the city as a company town to serve its steel mills. Although initially a very diverse city, after white flight in the 1970s, the city of Gary held the nation's highest percentage of African Americans for several decades. As of the 2020 census the city's population was 70,093, making it Indiana's ninth-largest city. Like other Rust Belt cities, Gary's once thriving steel industry has been significantly affected by th ...
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Illinois Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the State of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five appellate judicial districts of the state: three justices from the First District (Cook County) and one from each of the other four districts. Each justice is elected for a term of ten years and the chief justice is elected by the court from its members for a three-year term. Jurisdiction The court has limited original jurisdiction and has final appellate jurisdiction. It has jurisdiction in cases where the constitutionality of laws has been called into question, and discretionary jurisdiction from the Illinois Appellate Court. Until 2011, when Illinois abolished the death penalty, it had mandatory jurisdiction in capital cases. Along with the state legislature, the court promulgates rules for all state courts. Also, its members have the au ...
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Affirmation In Law
In law, an affirmation is a solemn declaration allowed to those who conscientiously object to taking an oath. An affirmation has exactly the same legal effect as an oath but is usually taken to avoid the religious implications of an oath; it is thus legally binding but not considered a religious oath. Some religious adherents hold beliefs that allow them to make legally binding promises but forbid them to swear an oath before a deity. Additionally, an individual may decline making a religious oath due to their personal beliefs, or those of their audience. In some jurisdictions, an affirmation may be given only if such a reason is provided. United Kingdom A right to give an affirmation has existed in English law since the Quakers Act 1695 (An Act that the Solemne Affirmation & Declaration of the People called Quakers shall be accepted instead of an Oath in the usual Forme; 7 & 8 Will. 3 c. 34) was passed. The text of the affirmation was the following: "I A.B. do declare in the Pre ...
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Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a variety of forms originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, among other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text can vary. The religious texts were compiled by different religious communities into various official collections. The earliest contained the first five books of the Bible. It is called the Torah in Hebrew and the Pentateuch (meaning ''five books'') in Greek; the second oldest part was a coll ...
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Christian Century
''The Christian Century'' is a Christian magazine based in Chicago, Illinois. Considered the flagship magazine of US mainline Protestantism, the monthly reports on religious news; comments on theological, moral, and cultural issues; and reviews books, movies, and music. The ''Century''s current editor and publisher is Peter W. Marty, while Steve Thorngate is its managing editor. Regular columns include: * From the Editor/Publisher, by Peter W. Marty * From the Editors * Notes from the Global Church, by Philip Jenkins * Screen Time, by Kathryn Reklis * Faith Matters, by Craig Barnes, Debra Dean Murphy, Stephanie Paulsell, Debie Thomas, and Sam Wells * On Art, by Lil Copan, Heidi Hornik, and Mikeal Parsons The ''Century'' website hosts podcasts by Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Amy Frykholm, Cassidy Hall, Matt Fitzgerald, Matt Gaventa, and Adam Hearlson. The magazine's editorial stance has been described as "liberal." It describes its own mission as follows: For decades, the ''Christi ...
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Amicus Curiae
An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on whether to consider an ''amicus'' brief lies within the discretion of the court. The phrase is legal Latin and the origin of the term has been dated to 1605–1615. The scope of ''amici curiae'' is generally found in the cases where broad public interests are involved and concerns regarding civil rights are in question. In American law, an ''amicus curiae'' typically refers to what in some other jurisdictions is known as an intervenor: a person or organization who requests to provide legal submissions so as to offer a relevant alternative or additional perspective regarding the matters in dispute. In the American courts, the amicus may be referred to as an ''amicus'' brief. In other jurisdictions, such as Canada, an ''amicus curiae'' is a ...
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Baptist Joint Committee For Religious Liberty
Founded in 1936, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) is a national faith-based organization which focuses on upholding the historic Baptist principle of religious liberty. With a staff of attorneys, scholars, ministers and mobilizers, the Washington D.C. based non-profit has a long history of advocating in the U.S. Supreme Court and working with Congress on issues relating to religious freedom and church-state separation. The BJC analyzes new legal cases and legislation within the larger framework of how best to protect the First Amendment right to religious freedom for all. In some of its recent Supreme Court cases, the BJC has filed '' amicus curiae'' (friend-of-the-court) briefs defending a potential employee's right to wear her hijab to work, opposing the travel ban, and opposing certain government-sponsored displays of religion, such as the giant free-standing cross in a government-owned intersection in Bladensburg, Maryland. On the legislation front, the ...
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The Chicago Daily Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century under Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, it achieved a reputation as a crusading paper with a decidedly more American-conservative anti-New Deal outlook, and its writing reached other markets through family and corporate relationships at the ''New York Daily News'' and the ''Washington Times-Herald.'' The 1960s saw its corporate parent owner, Tribune Company, reac ...
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Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954) regarding racial segregation, ''Roe v. Wade'' (1973) regarding abortion ( overturned in 2022), ''Bush v. Gore'' (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and ''Obergefell v. Hodges'' (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment ...
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Equal Protection Clause Of The Fourteenth Amendment
The Equal Protection Clause is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "''nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.''" It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law. A primary motivation for this clause was to validate the equality provisions contained in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which guaranteed that all citizens would have the guaranteed right to equal protection by law. As a whole, the Fourteenth Amendment marked a large shift in American constitutionalism, by applying substantially more constitutional restrictions against the states than had applied before the Civil War. The meaning of the Equal Protection Clause has been the subject of much debate, and inspired the well-known phrase "Equal Justice Under Law". This clause was the basis for ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954), the ...
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First Amendment To The United States Constitution
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with ''Gitlow v. New York'' (1925), the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In '' Everson v. Board of Education'' (1947), the Court drew on Thomas ...
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