Religious Expression and the American Constitution

4. RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

4 Religious Expression in Public Schools ❖❖❖❖❖ The most intense struggles over religious expression and the separation of church and state have occurred and continue to occur within the public schools of the nation. That is because so many people perceive, either rightly or wrongly, that the shaping of young minds is at stake. Although the family is probably as important as, and very likely more important than, what goes on in the schools in influencing a young person ’s religious beliefs, the concern is legitimately widespread that the money of taxpayers should not be used to tip the scales one way or the other. Since the free-exercise-of-religion clause of the First Amendment indisputably protects the right of private and religious grade schools and colleges to do what they wish in propagating their faith, the constitutional battle has been confined to the public schools—most often at the high school level, but occasionally in the lower grades and sometimes at public colleges and universities as well. There it will continue so long as religious believers try to use the public school setting as a place to encourage their faith, and separationists, whether religious or not, fight those efforts. The struggle, as we shall now see, has taken place with respect to a wide variety of activities. 43 Prayer in Classrooms, at Graduation, and at Sports Events Ever since 1962 it has been clear to the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as to lawyers who represent and advise public boards of education, that prayers led by teachers in the classroom or by school officials over the school’s public address system, whether nondenominational or not, violate the First Amendment. Even most adherents to the nonpreferentialist or accommodationist points of view would concede that when authority figures with influence over youngsters in a compulsory public education setting conduct religious exercises, that constitutes a government endorsement of religion that is forbidden by the establishment clause. Only hard-line opponents of the separation of church and state would argue otherwise. The precedent established in 1962 by the Supreme Court in Engel v Vitale involved the striking down of the daily reading of a prayer in New York schools, endorsed by the State Board of Regents, that said, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.”1 The following year the Court also invalidated Bible reading by classroom teachers in Pennsylvania and Maryland.2 Surveys taken in ensuing years indicated that many school districts across the country were ignoring these decisions, primarily in communities where the population was overwhelmingly of one religious faith and where no one was present or willing to challenge the practice. In more recent times, however, such practices have been abandoned in most places, but sometimes they have been replaced with compulsory moments of silence during which students may pray unheard if they wish to do so. Even that practice was invalidated in one instance by the Supreme Court in 1985 because it was clear to a majority of the justices that the intent of the particular statute adopted by the Alabama state legislature in mandating the observance, as revealed by its legislative history, was to encourage students to pray.3 Its sponsor even admitted, ungrammatically, to the district court where the case was originally tried that “No, I did not have no other purpose in mind.” Since that decision it has been left to the lower courts to examine the motivation of other moment-of-silence practices , and if they are found to have a neutral purpose—that is, to allow students to pray, think about an upcoming exam, or just daydream—they have been sustained. 44 Chapter Four Nevertheless, in a case from New Jersey that the Supreme Court declined to review on jurisdictional grounds, the U.S. Court of Appeals for that region upheld a district court finding that the state’s statute was unconstitutional despite its facial neutrality. The law stated as its purpose that it was to be “one minute . . . to be used solely at the discretion of the individual student . . . for quiet and private contemplation and introspection.”4 However, the district court was influenced by three witnesses of the legislative hearings, the media coverage of them, and prior attempted bills on the same subject, who testified that this law also had an “entirely religious purpose.” The...