Prayers in the Public Schools

Prayers in Public Schools

In the case of Engel v. Vitale (1962), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prayer in the U.S. public school system was unconstitutional and that such prayers "breached the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State." Ever since, the courts around the country have consistently turned down the efforts to reinstitute even the most innocent expression of religious devotion in public funded schools in complete disregard of an equally consistent American public opinion that has expressed its support for prayers in public schools. I believe that prayers in public schools should be allowed just as they were allowed during the first 200 years of our country's existence and shall argue in this essay why I believe so.

If we examine the U.S. constitution closely, it would be apparent that the founding fathers and the framers of the U.S. constitution had never intended a ban on prayers. In fact, several of the founding fathers fervently believed in the essential role of religion and morality in the life of the nation. James Madison, the author of most of the U.S. constitution wrote in 1785: "Religion [is] the basis and Foundation of Government." (Quoted in "James Madison," 2003) It is also interesting to note that the phrase "wall of separation to between the Church and State," which is often used by supporters of the prayer ban to justify the ruling never appear in the U.S. constitution even once. The expression was used by Thomas Jefferson in response to a letter from the Baptists who had approached him in 1802 and urged him to promote religious freedom of the minority religious groups. (Shelby, 1992)

For the next, almost 200 years, the U.S. courts as well as parts of the government and the American public were unanimous in their interpretation of the U.S. constitution and no objection was raised to the practice of reciting prayers in schools. Surely, the people including a number of judges and judicial experts who had lived in a period closer to the eighteenth century United States (when the U.S. constitution and the Bill of Rights were written) could understand the intentions of the founding fathers better.

Moreover isn't it a contradiction in terms when the we find the Congress praying at the opening of every session; federal officials and witnesses in courts taking their oaths on a Bible; "In God we trust" being stamped on our national currency and the Ten Commandments featured prominently in the Supreme Court building. The only place where even the slightest murmur of a prayer is prohibited is at the public schools.

The first two clauses of the First Amendment that have been used by the courts to prohibit prayers in public schools (known as the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause respectively) read as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Establishment Clause has been interpreted by the U.S. Courts to strike down any kind of prayers in public schools. Although I have no quarrel with the contention that the religious beliefs of a particular sect (even if it's the religion of the majority) should not be thrust down the thoughts of others, dubbing all collective prayers in schools as "establishment of religion" is, in my opinion stretching the meaning of the Establishment Clause to its limit. Furthermore, to my mind, the second part of the First Amendment (the Free Exercise Clause) seems to be violated by the prayer ban as a large number of people are being prevented from practicing their religion by the government. A voluntary recitation of prayers in school with exemption for those children who do not want to participate in it could be a satisfactory solution to the problem.

The Courts, however, have been extremely rigid in striking down all forms of prayers in public schools. Following the Engel v. Vitale in1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for a student to pray aloud over his lunch in Reed v. van Hoven in 1965. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court in while giving a ruling in Lemon v. Kurtzman established a strict "Lemon Test" to determine the permissibility of government activities involving religion that have led to further rulings such as prohibition of the display of the Ten Commandments on the walls of a classroom in Stone v. Gramm in 1980. (Shelby, 1992); banning of "daily moments of silence" in public schools in Wallace v. Jaffree (1995), outlawing of prayers in graduation ceremonies

, and banning of student-led pre-game prayers at public high school football games

. ("Public Schools Don't Have a Prayer," 2004)