Article 2: “Good Fences Make Strange Neighbors”: Released Time Programs and the McCollum v.Board of Education Decision of 1948

Though Justice Robert H. Jackson claimed in 1948 that the Supreme Court had no desire to become a “super board of education,” church-state rulings have played a significant role in shaping and exposing national opinions on the place of religion in the public schools (Reichly 1985, 142). The decisions have been important in their own right, affirming or eliminating practices deeply woven into the fabric of community life. Yet such cases are important not only for their conclusions but also for the ways in which interest groups have responded to judicial pronouncements. One case of particular relevance in this light was McCollum vs.