In addition to President-elect Donald Trump’s promise that he’ll be “closing up the Department of Education,” one of the more troubling planks of his education platform is his pledge to “support bringing back prayer to our schools.” How could he bring back something that never left? “As long as there are math tests, there will be prayer in schools,” said the late James Dunn of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Contrary to what Trump’s promise suggests, students are allowed to gather and pray together on school grounds.
Indeed, students’ freedom to pray is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and, contrary to what Trump’s promise suggests, students are allowed to gather and pray together on school grounds. Government neutrality toward religion grants students the freedom to pray, or not pray, however they choose, without fear or favor.
What’s not allowed is government-sponsored prayer. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that government-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment. Is that the type of coercive prayer that Trump wants to “bring back?” Schools making students pray? Trump’s school prayer charade isn’t about the freedom for students to pray — or not pray — as their conscience dictates, but about using the power of the government to compel students to pray in a particular way.
This week, in what could be a warning sign for Trump, a federal court ruled cited a 1980 Supreme Court case and said Louisiana cannot enforce its new law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in every public school in the state. The state is vowing to appeal, but the Supreme Court, as conservative as it is, has not (yet) given a green light to fully dismantling healthy boundaries between religion and government. The floodgates have not opened (yet). The type of school prayer push Trump and his allies are backing is still unconstitutional.
The fact that Trump appears to be pushing for more coercive school prayer anyway is part of his broader campaign to keep his supporters perpetually aggrieved.
To repeat: There’s nothing at the moment that prohibits students at schools from praying, individually or collectively. And, yet, one commonly hears the complaint from conservative Christians of how awful it is that prayer was taken out of schools. Imagine the Supreme Court rejecting a new law or policy that would coerce students into prayer at school. That would inevitably reinforce the idea that prayer has been taken out of schools and increase the grievance that fuels Trump’s political support.
The fact that Trump appears to be pushing for more coercive school prayer is part of his broader campaign to keep his supporters perpetually aggrieved.
Trump made a school prayer push in his first term, so what’s different now? The far-right religious legal movement sees a major opportunity for its cause in light of a 2022 Supreme Court decision, Kennedy v. Bremerton, involving a school football coach who’d prayed with students on the 50-yard line. In writing the opinion for a 6-3 court, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the coach “offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied” and did not rule on his actions at midfield.
Under Gorsuch’s statement of the facts, the Kennedy case did not greenlight coercive, government-sponsored school prayer. Biden’s Department of Education issued updated guidance for prayer in public schools after that case, reinforcing the longstanding understanding of the Constitution: “Teachers, school administrators, and other school employees may not encourage or discourage private prayer or other religious activity.”
Even so, there’s since been a widespread push for more prayer and religious observance in public schools across the country. In addition to Louisiana’s Ten Commandments law, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida passed laws allowing “school chaplains” in public schools.
“Groups that watch church-state issues say efforts nationwide to fund and empower religion — and, more specifically, a particular type of Christianity — are more plentiful and aggressive than they have been in years,” The Washington Post reported. Proponents of more government-sponsored prayer “see the Supreme Court as righting the American ship after a half-century of wrongly separating church and state.”
These efforts undermine their purported cause of religious freedom. Attacking public schools is about stoking grievance among his political base and blaming problems in schools on not having government-mandated prayer. It’s a tactic to spread division and incite anger.
Coercing our nation’s students to pray in the way Trump sees fit will do nothing but increase polarization. Obeying the government’s chosen prayer does not unite us. We’re united as Americans by the freedom to pray, worship and believe however we choose.