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As battles
over church-state separation have escalated in recent decades,
so too have misconceptions about the role of religion in public
schools. Has prayer been expelled from our schools, as some
people claim? Has Bible reading been banned? Must teachers avoid
all mention of religion? The answer to these questions is "no."
Public schools are not permitted to sponsor worship, but that
does not mean that they must be "religion-free zones." In order
to clear up some of the misunderstandings about religion and the
public schools, it is important for Americans to have the facts.
Few issues
in American public life engender more controversy than religion
and public education. Unfortunately, this topic is all too often
shrouded in confusion and misinformation. When discussing this
matter, it's important to keep in mind some basic facts.
Ninety percent of America's youngsters attend public schools.
These students come from homes that espouse a variety of
religious and philosophical beliefs. Given the incredible
diversity of American society, it's important that our public
schools respect the beliefs of everyone and protect parental
rights. The schools can best do this by not sponsoring religious
worship. This principle ensures that America's public schools
are welcoming to all children and leaves decisions about
religion where they belong with the family.
The U.S. Supreme Court has been vigilant in forbidding public
schools and other agencies of the government to interfere with
Americans' constitutional right to follow their own consciences
when it comes to religion. In 1962, the justices ruled that
official prayer had no place in public education.
This decision is widely misunderstood today. The court did not
rule that students are forbidden to pray on their own; the
justices merely said that government officials had no business
composing a prayer for students to recite. The Engel v. Vitale
case came about because parents in New York challenged a prayer
written by a New York education board. These Christian, Jewish
and Unitarian parents did not want their children subjected to
state-sponsored devotions. The high court agreed that the scheme
amounted to government promotion of religion.
In the following year, 1963, the Supreme Court handed down
another important ruling dealing with prayer in public schools.
In Abington Township School District v. Schempp, the court
declared school-sponsored Bible reading and recitation of the
Lord's Prayer unconstitutional.
Since those rulings, a myth has sprung up asserting that Madalyn
Murray O'Hair, a prominent atheist, "removed prayer from public
schools." In fact, the 1962 case was brought by a group of New
York parents who had no connection to O'Hair, and the 1963 case
was filed by a Unitarian family from the Philadelphia area.
O'Hair, at that time a resident of Baltimore, had filed a
similar lawsuit, which the high court consolidated with the
Pennsylvania case.
It is important to remember that in these decisions the Supreme
Court did not "remove prayer from public schools." The court
removed only government-sponsored worship. Public school
students have always had the right to pray on their own as class
schedules permit.
Also, the Supreme Court did not rule against official prayer and
Bible reading in public schools out of hostility to religion.
Rather, the justices held that these practices were examples of
unconstitutional government interference with religion. Thus,
the exercises violated the First Amendment.
Nothing in the 1962 or 1963 rulings makes it unlawful for public
school students to pray or read the Bible (or any other
religious book) on a voluntary basis during their free time.
Later decisions have made this even clearer. In 1990, the high
court ruled specifically that high school students may form
clubs that meet during "non-instructional" time to pray, read
religious texts or discuss religious topics if other student
groups are allowed to meet.
The high court has also made it clear, time and again, that
objective study about religion in public schools is legal and
appropriate. Many public schools offer courses in comparative
religion, the Bible as literature or the role of religion in
world and U.S. history. As long as the approach is objective,
balanced and non-devotional, these classes present no
constitutional problem.
In short, a public school's approach to religion must have a
legitimate educational purpose, not a devotional one. Public
schools should not be in the business of preaching to students
or trying to persuade them to adopt certain religious beliefs.
Parents, not school officials, are responsible for overseeing a
young person's religious upbringing. This is not a controversial
principle. In fact, most parents would demand these basic
rights.
A passage from the high court's ruling in the 1963 Pennsylvania
case sums up well the proper role of religion in public
education.
Justice Tom Clark, writing for the court, observed, "Nothing
that we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or
of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular
program of education, may not be effected consistent with the
First Amendment." Clark added that government could not force
the exclusion of religion in schools "in the sense of
affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion."
The court's ruling suggested simply that a student's family, not
government, is responsible for decisions about religious
instruction and guidance. There was respect, not hostility,
toward religion in the court's ruling.
Justice Clark concluded, "The place of religion in our society
is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance
on the home, the church, and the inviolable citadel of the
individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through
bitter experience that it is not within the power of government
to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid
or oppose, to advance or retard. In the relationship between man
and religion, the State is firmly committed to a position of
neutrality."
Some critics of the high court's rulings have suggested that
these church-state rulings have no precedence in American
history. On the contrary, the decisions are the logical outcome
of a debate that has been under way in our country for many
decades.
Public education for the masses, as conceived by Horace Mann and
others in the mid 19th century, was intended to be
"non-sectarian." In reality, however, schools often reflected
the majority religious view a kind of nondenominational
Protestantism. Classes began with devotional readings from the
King James Version of the Bible and recitation of the Protestant
version of the Lord's Prayer. Students were expected to take
part whether they shared those religious sentiments or not.
Catholic families were among the first to challenge these
school-sponsored religious practices. In some parts of the
country, tension over religion in public schools erupted into
actual violence. In Philadelphia, for example, full-scale riots
and bloodshed resulted in 1844 over which version of the Bible
should be used in classroom devotions. Several Catholic churches
and a convent were burned; many people died. In Cincinnati, a
"Bible War" divided the city in 1868 after the school board
discontinued mandatory Bible instruction.
Where
Faith Groups Stand...
Faith groups that support the First Amendment and
oppose government-sponsored prayer in public schools include:
American
Baptist Churches, USA
American Jewish Congress
Anti-Defamation League
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
Central Conference of American Rabbis
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
Mennonite Central Committee
National Council of Churches
National Council of Jewish Women
National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council
North American Council for Muslim Women
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
Soka Gakkai International - U.S.A.
The Church of Christ, Scientist
The Episcopal Church, USA
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
Unitarian Universalist Association
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church
Women of Reform Judaism
The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods
Tensions like this led to the first round of legal challenges to
school-sponsored religious activity in the late 19th century.
Several states ruled against the practices. Compelling children
to recite prayers or read devotionals from certain versions of
the Bible, these courts said, was not the job of public schools.
They declared government-imposed religion a violation of state
constitutions and the fundamental rights of conscience.
Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted this view as well,
applying the church-state separation provisions of the First
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The high court's decisions have worked well in practice. In
1995, a joint statement of current law regarding religion in
public schools was published by a variety of religious and civil
liberties organizations. This statement served as the basis for
U.S. Department of Education guidelines intended to alleviate
concerns about constitutional religious activities in schools.
These guidelines, which were sent to every public school in the
nation, stressed that students have the right to pray or to
discuss their religious views with their peers so long as they
are not disruptive. But the guidelines went on to state that
public schools are prohibited from sponsoring worship or
pressuring students to pray, meditate, read religious texts or
take part in other religious activities.
These are common-sense guidelines, but they are not enough for
some people. Misguided individuals and powerful sectarian
lobbies in Washington continue to press for religious majority
rule in the nation's public schools. They advocate for school
prayer amendments and other measures that would permit
government-sponsored worship in the schools. They want their
beliefs taught in the public schools and hope to use the public
schools as instruments of evangelism.
Americans must resist these efforts. They must protect the
religious neutrality of public education. Being neutral on
religion is not the same as being hostile toward it. In a
multi-faith, religiously diverse society such as ours,
neutrality is the appropriate stance for the government to take
toward religion. Under this principle, public schools can allow
for individual student religious expression without endorsing or
promoting any specific faith.
The United States has changed since its founding in 1787. A
nation that was once relatively religiously homogeneous has
become one of the most pluralistic and diverse on the face of
the globe. Scholars count over 2,000 different denominations and
traditions in our country.
The answer to disputes over religion in public schools is
simple: Keep the government out of the private religious lives
of students. Leave decisions about when and how to pray (or
whether to pray at all) to the home. This is the course the
Supreme Court has adopted, and we are a stronger nation for it.
As Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said in a June 1992
opinion, "No holding of this Court suggests that a school can
persuade or compel a student to participate in a religious
exercise.... The First Amendment's Religion Clauses mean that
religious beliefs and religious expressions are too precious to
be either proscribed or prescribed by the State."
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