A Reader’s Legal Question: Student-Led Prayers

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Reader Question:

I was talking at a conference recently with a hotshot in the atheist movement, and she told me thought that student led prayer etc. was not really legit. With a strict interpretation of separation of church and state would that not be true? What is the principle with which students are allowed but adults are not?

– Jimbo

Answer:

In public primary and secondary schools, the adults are employed by and acting for the government. The students are not. That means that adult religious speech is restricted and student religious speech is not – usually. This answer is restricted to public schools run by the government, which accounts for most schools in the U.S. In this answer when I say “school,” I mean a public, government-run school, not a private or parochial school. The rules are different for those.

We know that schools cannot start the school day with a prayer, and we know that prayer is not allowed at school functions like school board meetings, athletic events, and graduations. These are events organized and led by the adults at those schools, though. What about when students take the initiative?

A significant United Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines School District, decided in 1969, was not a religious freedom case, but controls freedom of speech by public school students, including their religious speech. The Tinker students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended when they refused not to wear them. The Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment applies to public school children, and that school administrators have to demonstrate a constitutionally valid reason for restricting student speech. If the school wanted to restrict the students’ speech, it had to prove that it had more reason than just to “avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpleasant viewpoint.”

So, the general rule is that if a voluntary group of students wants to pray at school, and voluntarily gather for that purpose, they can. The key term in that rule is the word “voluntary.”

As long as there are tests and oral reports, there will be prayer in schools – just not coordinated, formal prayer. Student-led or -initiated prayer over the school’s PA system, for example, is not a voluntary association of students agreeing to come together to exercise religious freedom, free speech, or freedom of association.  Nor is a student-led prayer – even a nondenominational and non-proselytizing one – over the PA system at a football game. “Moments of silence” for secular purposes, such as a meditative moment to calm rowdiness, are fine; moments of silence during which students are encouraged to pray are not permitted. Even non-denominational prayer is forbidden because the Establishment Clause requires absolute religious neutrality on the part of the government.

A “See You at the Pole” (SYAP) prayer movement began years ago, and students from all over the world participate annually, on the fourth Wednesday of September. Students who choose to do so gather at the school’s flagpole before classes begin for a student-led prayer. Unfortunately, SYAP events and other student-led religious clubs can serve as a vehicle to promote bullying of non-religious students, or even students who are not evangelical Christians. Public schools must protect their students from “subtle coercive pressure” in elementary and secondary schools, so administrators may be justified in stopping the campus meetings of these student groups if bullying actually does result.

Because of the coercive pressure exerted when the authority figures at a school participate in prayer, teachers, administrators, and coaches should not join the voluntary prayers of the students. There has not been a Supreme Court decision on this issue, but the various federal district and appellate court decisions on the subject tend to agree that adult participation lends too much emphasis to the religious activity.

(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)

Last Updated on December 6, 2012 by