School prayer in the United States, if organized by the school, is largely banned from public elementary, middle, and high schools by a series of Supreme Court decisions since 1962. Students may pray privately, and join religious clubs in after-school hours. Public schools, such as local school districts, are banned from conducting religious observances such as prayer. Private and parochial schools are not covered by these rulings, nor are colleges and universities. Elementary and secondary schools are covered because students are required to attend, and are considered more at risk from official pressure than are older students and adults. The constitutional basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that:
The first part of the amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion") is known as the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, while the second part ("or prohibiting the free exercise thereof") is known as the Free Exercise Clause.
Although each of these clauses originally applied only to the federal government, the Fourteenth Amendment extended the scope of the entire First Amendment to all levels of government, including the state and local levels,Marshall, W. P. (1999). "The School Prayer Decisions". Constitutional Commentary 16(3), 535. thus compelling states and their public schools to adopt an equally detached approach to religion in schools.
Since 1962, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that school-mandated prayers in public schools are unconstitutional. United States law does permit religious education of public school students, along with voluntary prayer, during school hours under the principle of released time as "long as the teachers are not state-approved, public money is not involved, and there is no state coercion."
School prayer prior to 1962 Until the mid-20th century, it was common practice for public schools to open with a prayer or Bible reading. The 19th-century debates over public funding for religious schools, and reading the King James Bible in the public schools was most heated in 1863 and 1876.Steven K. Green, The Bible, the School, and the Constitution (2012), pp. 40, 88, excerpt Partisan activists on the public-school issue believed that exposing Catholic schoolchildren to that particular translation would loosen their affiliation to the Catholic Church. In response, Catholics repeatedly objected to the distinctly Protestant observances in local schools. For instance, in the Edgerton Bible Case (Weiss v. District Board (1890)), the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Catholics who objected to the use of the Protestant Bible in public schools. This ruling was based on the state constitution and only applied in Wisconsin. Eventually, Catholics had a larger voice and even control over politics in the major cities. Irish Catholic women – who married late or not at all – began to specialize as teachers in the public schools.Steven P. Erie, Rainbow's end: Irish-Americans and the dilemmas of urban machine politics, 1840-1985 (1988) pp 61, 89-90, 122, 164. Catholics and some other high church groups including German Lutherans, Episcopalians as well as members of other religions such as Jews, set up their own school systems, called parochial schools. Southern Baptists and fundamentalists in the late 20th century began aggressively setting up their own schools, where religion was practiced but no government aid was used. Likewise, homeschooling in the late 20th century represented a reaction against compulsory schooling that did not promote religious ideals. F. Michael Perko, "Religious Schooling In America: An Historiographic Reflection," History of Education Quarterly 2000 40(3): 320-338 online
In 1949, Bible reading was a part of routine in the public schools of at least thirty-seven states. In twelve of these states, Bible reading was legally required by state laws; 11 states passed these laws after 1913. In 1960, 42% of school districts nationwide tolerated or required Bible reading, and 50% reported some form of homeroom daily devotional exercise.Adam Laats, "Our schools, our country: American evangelicals, public schools, and the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963". Journal of religious history 36.3 (2012): 319-334 at p 321-22.
A turning point: the "Regents' Prayer" and Engel v. Vitale The media and popular culture often erroneously credit atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair with removing school prayer from US public schools, when the case against recitation of the Lord's Prayer in Baltimore schools was decided by the Supreme Court in 1963. A more significant case had reached the Supreme Court one year prior, suddenly changing the legal climate for school prayer. In 1955, the New York Board of Regents developed a prayer recommended (but not required) for school districts under its purview. The prayer was relatively short: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country."Boston, Rob. "How Five New York Families Ended Coercive Prayer In America's Public Schools". Church & State 65.6 (2012): 12. MasterFILE Complete. 28 October 2013. The board stated that the prayer would "combat juvenile delinquency and counter the spread of Communism".
Seven years later, Steven I. Engel, a Jew, was upset to see his son's hands clasped and his head bowed in prayer. He told his son that this was "not the way we say prayers". Engel, a founding member of the New York Civil Liberties Union, brought action along with Daniel Lichtenstein, Monroe Lerner, Lenore Lyons, and Lawrence Roth, all parents of children in the Long Island, New York public school system, against Union Free School District No. 9 for its adoption and subsequent prescription of the so-called "Regent's prayer", arguing that it constituted the state-sponsored establishment of religion in violation of citizens' First Amendment rights via the Fourteenth Amendment.Engel v. Vitale. (1999). Supreme Court Cases: The Dynamic Court (1930–1999), N.PAG.
Use of the Regent's prayer was initially upheld in both New York State Court and in the New York Court of Appeals, prompting Engel to petition the US Supreme Court in the Engel v. Vitale case in 1962. With its 6–1 vote to make public recitation of the Regents' Prayer in public schools unlawful, the U.S. Supreme Court made its first-ever decision on prayer in public schools. It made its second in 1963—the Abington School District v. Schempp ruling, which made the corporate reading of the Bible and recitation of the Lord's Prayer unlawful in public schools.William M.Beaney and Edward N. Beiser. "Prayer and politics: the impact of Engel and Schempp on the political process". Journal of Public Law 13 (1964): 475+.
1963 and after In these two landmark decisions, Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), which focused primarily on school-sponsored Bible reading, the Supreme Court established what is now the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in US schools. While the Engel decision held that the promulgation of an official state-school prayer stood in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause (thus overruling the New York courts' decisions), Abington held that Bible readings and other public school-sponsored religious activities were prohibited.School District of Abington Township, Pennsylvania v. Schempp. (1999). Supreme Court Cases: The Dynamic Court (1930–1999), N.PAG. Madalyn Murray's lawsuit, Murray v. Curlett, contributed to the removal of compulsory Bible reading from the public schools of the United States.
The Murray suit was consolidated with the Abington case. With the success of the lawsuits, the intent of the Constitution with regard to the relationship between church and state again came under critical scrutiny and has remained there to this day. While students do retain the right to pray in public schools, even in organized groups such as "See You at the Pole", the Engel, Abington and Murray lawsuits disallowed schools from including prayer as a compulsory activity required of every student.
Following these two cases came the Court's decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), a ruling that established the Lemon test for religious activities within schools. The Lemon test states that, in order to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause, any practice sponsored within state-run schools (or other public state-sponsored activities) must adhere to the following three criteria:Lemon v. Kurtzman. (1999). Supreme Court Cases: The Dynamic Court (1930–1999), N.PAG.
Have a secular purpose; Must neither advance nor inhibit religion; and Must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in Good News Club v. Milford Central School that Child Evangelism Fellowship could use public-school facilities to facilitate Bible clubs.
As of 2019, religious prayer can still be seen in public schools in America. In a nationally representative sample of 1,800 teens (ages 13–17), 12% from the South region of the United States say that they have had a teacher lead their class in prayer. LifeWise Academy provides Bible education for public school students during school hours under released time laws.
In 2021, KQED wrote, "Elk Grove Unified School District began ... setting aside rooms in many of its middle and high schools for prayer during Muslim holidays."California Schools Prepare for Thousands of Afghan Refugee Students, KQED, September 20, 2021 As the Supreme Court found in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, "nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by this Court prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the schoolday."
In 2015, high school football coach Joseph Kennedy was fired for kneeling at 50-yard line after football games to pray. Religious conservative groups argued that this was a violation of his First Amendment right of freedom of speech as a private citizen. The case was taken to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in 2017. It ruled in favor of the Washington State school district, saying that Kennedy was acting as a public official and not as a private citizen when he was praying in front of students and parents. After refusing to take the case in January 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in April 2022. The Court ruled in favor of Kennedy on June 27, 2022, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District.
Controversy Some reactions to Engel and Abington were negative, with over 150 constitutional amendments submitted to reverse the policy. None passed Congress.Geoffrey R. Stone, "In Opposition to the School Prayer Amendment." University of Chicago Law Review 50 (1983): 823-848. online . Catholics were the most hostile group to the Court decisions.Kathleen Holscher, "A Decision that Spits in the Face of Our History": Catholics and the Midcentury Fight Over Public Prayer and Bible Reading," Catholic Historical Review 102#2 (2016) pp. 340-368. Evangelicals at first were divided, but then came around to the anti-Court position, seeing themselves increasingly as a beleaguered minority in a rapidly secularizing nation.Laats, "Our schools, our country: American evangelicals, public schools, and the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963."