Should Religion Be Allowed In Public Schools

The First Amendment and the Classroom: Religious Education in the Public School System

Religion in the classroom is an extremely touchy subject with many pro’s and cons. Some people believe in it fully while others want their children to have nothing to do it with. But which belief is correct? Worship should not only be allowed back in the classroom but encouraged. In this paper I will review both the negative and positive effects of Religion in the classroom in this paper as well as why I believe it should be allowed back in.

Why was Religion taken out of Public Schools?

On June 25, 1962, the United States Supreme Court ruled that in the case of Engel v. Vitale, a prayer accepted by the New York Board of Regents for use in school violated

the First Amendment. The Prayer in question reads as follows “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon thee, and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.” The complaint was brought forth by a group of families who believed the prayer contradicted their personal religious beliefs.

The court’s decision was delivered by Justice Hugo Black and stated, “We think that by using its public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause.”(Engel v. Vitale, http://laws.findlaw.com/us/370/421.html) This decision changed the outlook of how American society practiced religion in the public school system; however it did not outlaw religion from the school, only government-sponsored worship. In 1963, another court case, Abington school district v. Schempp, made it clear that the reading of the bible and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer were not allowed in public schools. In 1971, the Supreme Court established the “Lemon test”. This test states that in order to be constitutional under the

Establishment Clause of the First Amendment any practice sponsored within the state run schools must adhere to these three guidelines: 1) Have a secular purpose 2) Must neither advance nor inhibit religion and 3) must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion. This act also established that “eligible teachers must only teach courses offered in the public schools, using only materials used in the public schools, and must agree not to teach courses in religion.” These three cases were instrumental in removing certain religious practices from the classroom.
What type of Religious Activity is allowed and not allowed in Public School?
To understand the full relationship between religion and public schools, we must first have a clear idea of what the government stance is and how it is applied within the public school.

In 1962 when the Supreme Court made their ruling on Engel v. Vitale, they weren’t necessarily saying that religion wasn’t allowed in school. What they were saying is that the Government or teachers for that matter cannot enforce or influence any religion in school or on any citizen or pupil. In 1995, President Clinton said this about religion in the classroom: “Nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door. While the government may not use schools to coerce the consciences of our students, or to convey official endorsement of religion, the public schools also may not discriminate against private religious expression during the school day”(First Amendment Center,

2005).
According to the courts, the First Amendment requires that public school employees be religiously neutral. Public schools can educate their students about Religion but they are not allowed to provide any type of religious instruction. They cannot promote, praise or put down any type of religion or religious beliefs. Prayer is still very much allowed at school and is in fact a protected form of freedom of speech. The student can pray anywhere, except in their actual classroom when class is in session. The students can also pray at high school games and ceremonies, both individual or in group pray, however school employees are not allowed to lead any type of group prayer at any school function. This issue can get somewhat divided when it comes to student speeches, according the website, the first amendment center, “If the student speech is deemed to be school-sponsored or endorsed by the school, the student prayer would violate the establishment clause.” Some courts have established that student only-originated speeches would not be conflicting of the establishment clause. There are two federal appeals court decisions that show how the courts can be divided on this issue. In October 2000, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a First Amendment challenge brought by students in California who were denied making a religious speech at their high school graduation in Cole v. Oroville Union High School. The court determined that school district officials prohibited the student’s religious speech in order to avoid disrespecting the establishment clause. The court determined that even “if the graduation ceremony was a public or limited public forum, the District’s refusal to allow the students to deliver a sectarian speech or prayer as part of the graduation was necessary to avoid violating the Establishment Clause.” In in a different case in May 2001, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to deny a Florida school district policy allowing an elected student to deliver an unhampered message at graduation. The court system determined in Adler v. Duval County School Board, that “it is impossible to say that … [the policy] on its face violates the Establishment Clause without effectively banning all religious speech at school graduations, not matter how private the message or how divorced the content of the message may be from any state review, let alone censorship.”(FAQ’s, ww.firstamendmentcenter.org/faq/frequently-asked-questions)
The Pros and Cons of Religion in the classroom:
The pros for religion in the classroom are mostly based on opinion verses actual facts, but the most popular argument is that by removing prayer in school we are essentially depriving our children from having a beneficial relationship with God. By not teaching them about God, we are, in a way, teaching them not to believe in God. Since prayer was removed from the classroom in the 1960’s pregnancy rate, dropout rate, crime levels and drug usage have dramatically increased within the public school system, but is this direct proof that when religion was removed from the classroom so was basic morals?
The cons for religion in the classroom seem to be more factual based. The public schools job is to educate and provide a safe learning environment for our children. It is not their job to teach our children what and how to believe, that is the responsibility of the parent. By not allowing religion into public school, the school district is protecting children from potentially conflicting personal beliefs