The constitutional rules governing the forum concept are complicated, but one consistent theme is that the state may not discriminate against a person or group seeking access to the forum based on that person’s or group’s viewpoint. “ unlike other public settings, schools are not places for unlimited debate; instead, educators may restrict any form of expression in order to preserve pedagogical goals. Anybody who wants to say “Merry Christmas” is legally permitted to do so. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided several cases involving the First Amendment rights of public school students, but the most often cited are Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), Bethel School District No. Justice Alito also disputed the majority’s contention that CLS, even without official recognition, can still effectively operate on campus, noting that the administration has ignored requests by the group to secure rooms for meetings and tables at campus events. In the court case, Board of Education v. Mergens (1990), the Supreme Court upheld the Equal Access Act. However, in a statement accompanying the denial of review, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. (joined by fellow conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh) indicated the high court would be open to reviewing other cases involving similar issues. The schools also must be sensitive to the possibility that some students will feel coerced to participate in the program (Bauchman v. West High School, 10th U.S. Freedom of religion and religious expression, especially within the public school system, has been a highly contested issue for decades. Circuit Court of Appeals reached a similar conclusion in a case involving a public high school in Massachusetts that held a mandatory assembly devoted to AIDS and sex education. But it is not always easy to determine exactly what constitutes indoctrination or school sponsorship of religious activities. 403 v. Fraser (1986) and Hazelwood School District v. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court held that the Establishment Clause prohibited the recitation of a school-sponsored prayer in public schools. The presence of student religious groups in public schools has raised one additional issue. Freedom of religion and religious expression, especially within the public school system, has been a highly contested issue for decades. Conflicts over religion in school are hardly new. ... Vitale (1962)... Student-Led Prayer: . And if yo… Religious Displays and the Courts A significant, some might argue fatal, shift for those advocating the centrality of religion to public schools came in the early mid-20th century.As has always been the case, public schools, serving as microcosms of society, reflect not just the dominant values and ethos of society, but also serve an important economic and intellectual purpose. Students have the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs. The court said the school’s policy against religious discrimination by student groups was unenforceable in this instance. A key factor in the court’s decision was that the lessons took place in the schools. For instance, when a student invokes gratitude to God in a valedictory address, or a high school football player offers a prayer in a huddle, is the school legally responsible for their religious expression? And about half of U.S. teens in public schools (53%) say they often or sometimes see other students wearing jewelry or clothing with religious symbols. The court determined that a state law requiring children to attend school until the age of 16 burdened the free exercise of their families’ religion. 2, a federal district court dismissed a suit against Oregon’s Dallas school district, stating that accommodating transgender students does not impinge on the religious rights of other students or their parents. The court ruled that school authorities may not suppress expression by students unless the expression significantly disrupts school discipline or invades the rights of others. Freedom of Religious Expression in Public Schools. For a holiday music program to be constitutionally sound, the courts maintain, school officials must ensure the predominance of secular considerations, such as the program’s educational value or the musical qualities of the pieces. After lengthy testimony from both proponents and opponents of intelligent design, a federal district court in Pennsylvania concluded that the policy violates the Establishment Clause because intelligent design is a religious, rather than scientific, theory. Religious music can be played in public schools when the overall focus of the activity is not religious. “As secular organizations continue to bully and threaten an increasing number of state, local and county institutions to do away with prayer by convincing them it is unconstitutional, there has been a spike in the number of school districts, city councils, and other government entities that are dropping the time-honored tradition.”, A California state bill its sponsors say will prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity at private universities is threatening to expose faith-based schools to enormous legal threats, school officials warn…. The constitution both protects and prohibits many religious behaviors in public schools. Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World. A federal district court and the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with Hastings, and CLS appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1954, Congress revised the Pledge of Allegiance to refer to the nation as “under God,” a phrase that has since been recited by generations of schoolchildren. Schempp became the source of the enduring constitutional doctrine that all government action must have a predominantly secular purpose – a requirement that, according to the court, the Bible-reading exercise clearly could not satisfy. The issues are complicated by other constitutional guarantees. That much is clear. When they are acting as representatives of a public school system, however, courts have said their rights are constrained by the Establishment Clause. For instance, about four-in-ten public school students say they routinely see other students praying before sporting events, according to the survey. The 3rd U.S. The U.S. Department of Education has offered useful guidance summarizing constitutionally protected school prayer. Here is a brief review of eight such cases. The Ohio Supreme Court upheld his firing in a 4-3 vote. Most recently, in 2019, the Supreme Court declined to review a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding the firing of a football coach at a public high school for praying on the field with his players after games. The judges also noted that Yoder was concerned with the survival of an entire religious community – the Old Order Amish – rather than the impact of education on a single family. In one of these cases, the Supreme Court ruled against CLS, stating that these nondiscrimination policies were constitutional so long as they were viewpoint neutral and fairly applied to all groups seeking recognition on campus. Such Bible study programs have generally been held unconstitutional because, the courts conclude, they teach the Bible as religious truth or are designed to inculcate particular religious sentiments. The court’s 5-4 decision rested explicitly on the argument that graduating students were being forced to participate in a religious ceremony. May 2009 Current legally protected rights of religious expression: • Government, laws and public policies, like many things within society, do reflect a clear value system. 47 The following principles apply: (1) students may pray or use religious speech during noninstructional time; (2) students may organize prayer groups and meetings, such as “see you at the pole” gatherings; (3) students may pray—or not—during an official moment of silence; (4) students may … Compelled free speech by public schools. Furthermore, the court said, the school board had a strong interest in exposing children to a variety of ideas and images and in using a uniform series of books for all children. Although the case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, involved just one law school (the University of California, Hastings College of Law), other law schools around the country also had been sued by the organization for similar reasons. Instead, the 5-4 majority handed down a narrowly tailored decision that upheld the specific policy of Hastings Law School – the “all-comers” policy – as long as it is applied in an evenhanded manner. That was the key question in Wigg v. Sioux Falls School District (8th U.S. October 2007 Wisconsin mandated that all children attend public school until age 16, but Jonas Yoder, a devoutly religious Amish man, refused to … The court concluded that this one-time exposure to the material would not substantially burden the parents’ freedom to rear their children and that the school authorities had strong reasons to inform high school students about “safe sex.”. The court reasoned that once the school day ended, Wigg became a private citizen, leaving her free to be a Good News Club instructor at any school, including the one where she worked. In the 19th century, Protestants and Catholics frequently fought over Bible reading and prayer in public schools. The 6th U.S. Judges usually reach that same conclusion when school officials cooperate with students to produce student-delivered religious messages. These complaints typically rest on both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which forbids the state to deprive any person of “life, liberty or property without due process of law.” The Supreme Court has interpreted them as protecting the right of parents to shape and control the education of their children. After Hastings refused to exempt CLS from the policy – known as the “all-comers” policy – the group sued, claiming the policy violated its First and 14th Amendment rights to free speech, expressive association and freedom of religious expression. In a now-lengthy line of decisions, the Supreme Court has ruled consistently that religious groups represent a particular viewpoint on the subjects they address and that officials may not exclude that viewpoint from a government-created forum for expression or association. 1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA While the issue never reached the Supreme Court again, it continued to be litigated in the lower courts. The court rejected this defense, ruling that the university had allowed other student groups to use university property and that the complaining group could not be excluded on the basis of its religious viewpoint. Schools must be careful when allowing students a forum in which to express themselves. In Roberts v. Madigan (1990), a federal district court similarly upheld the authority of a public school principal in Colorado to order a fifth-grade teacher to take down a religious poster from the classroom wall and to remove books titled “The Bible in Pictures” and “The Life of Jesus” from the classroom library. In Rosenberger, the Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment required a state university to grant the same printing subsidy to an evangelical journal that it made available to all other student journals. As a general rule, public schools may not advance any specific religion or discriminate in their treatment of different religions. The court reasoned that students attending the graduation ceremony were as coerced to acquiesce in a student-led prayer as they would be if the prayer were offered by a member of the clergy, the practice forbidden by Weisman in 1992. Engel involved a simple and seemingly nonsectarian prayer composed especially for use in New York’s public schools. • The core of the U.S. Constitution supports the notion that individual rights come from God and not the state. (4) I believe the courts would likely rule in favor of the student. As a condition for receiving federal financial aid, the law required that public secondary schools not discriminate on the basis of religion or political viewpoint in recognizing and supporting extracurricular activities. Modernization and Industrialization. In 1968, the Court ruled in an 8-1 decision in the case of In re … In a number of these cases, school districts have brought in outside groups to run the Bible study program. By permitting the Gay and Lesbian Alliance to conduct the Day of Silence, Kozinski said, the district was choosing sides on a controversial social issue and stifling religiously motivated speech on one side of the issue. A great many school districts, meanwhile, have recognized the force of parents’ religious or moral concerns on issues of sexuality and reproduction and have voluntarily provided opt-outs from classes devoted to those topics. Over the past 20 years, evangelical Christians and others have advanced the rights of religious organizations to have equal access to meeting space and other forms of recognition provided by public schools to students. Writing for the dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued that by affirming Hastings’ policy, the majority sacrificed core First Amendment principles in favor of political correctness and armed “public educational institutions with a handy weapon for suppressing the speech of unpopular groups.” In addition, Alito asserted, the majority overlooked certain evidence demonstrating that Hastings had singled out CLS because of its beliefs. By insisting that religious expression be excluded from the formal curriculum, the Supreme Court was assuring parents that public schools would be officially secular and would not compete with parents in their children’s religious upbringing. The Legal Status of Religious Organizations in Civil Lawsuits This, the courts determined, was true even during activities in which students or, as in this case… Free Exercise and the Legislative and Executive Branches And in 2019, the Supreme Court declined to review Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, letting stand a 3rd U.S. The most famous of the cases is Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education (1987), in which a group of Tennessee parents complained that references to mental telepathy, evolution, secular humanism, feminism, pacifism and magic in a series of books in the reading curriculum offended the families’ Christian beliefs. The court also pointed to evidence that the legislation’s sponsor hoped that the balanced treatment requirement would lead science teachers to abandon the teaching of evolution. At the time of its school prayer decisions in the early 1960s, the Supreme Court had never ruled on whether students have the right of free speech inside public schools. Prayer and Bible-reading have long been excluded from the public schools. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The first decision by the Supreme Court on parents’ rights to control their children’s education came in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), which guarantees to parents the right to enroll their children in private rather than public schools, whether the private schools are religious or secular. A case was brought by a 24-year-old French woman, who argued that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression. When off duty, school employees are free to engage in worship, proselytizing or any other lawful faith-based activity. But federal courts are more divided in cases involving students acting on their own to include a religious sentiment or prayer at a school commencement or a similar activity. • Freedom of expression in public schools is legally defendable and worthy of the effort to fight discrimination. 3 (1996), the 2nd U.S. The case was widely viewed as a contest between the right of free association and nondiscrimination policies. She argued that the 6th Circuit’s ruling runs counter to the guidelines on religious expression in public schools issued in August by Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Students' rights of free religious expression are not not necessarily automatic given. Prior to the lawsuit, he said, many officially recognized groups on the Hastings campus – not just CLS – had membership requirements written into their bylaws that were discriminatory. This analysis, updated on Oct. 3, 2019, was originally published in 2007 as part of a larger series that explored different aspects of the complex and fluid relationship between government and religion. For a public school class to study the Bible without violating constitutional limits, the class would have to include critical rather than devotional readings and allow open inquiry into the history and content of biblical passages. In 2019, for instance, policies that could affect the way evolution is taught in public school (often by limiting discussion of “controversial issues”) were introduced and in some cases debated in several states, including Arizona, Florida, Maine, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Virginia. These organizations have consistently succeeded in securing the same privileges provided by public schools to secular groups. But while courts have given states some latitude in crafting moment of silence statutes, they have shown much less deference to laws or policies that involve actual prayer. The first is what limits school systems may impose on the ordinary and incidental expression of religious identity by teachers in the classroom. Other courts, however, have invalidated school policies that permit student speakers to include religious sentiments in graduation addresses. (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries. The two clauses say, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Before those two court decisions, courts had applied the religion clauses only to actions of the federal government. The conflicts affect many aspects of public education, including classroom curricula, high school football games, student clubs, graduation ceremonies. In another instance of conflict, some student religious groups want the right to exclude students who do not share the groups’ beliefs, specifically on questions of sexuality. If you believe that public school teachers, coaches, or administrators are violating your child’s constitutional rights to religious liberty—either by promoting a religion your family doesn’t share or by infringing on your child’s right to religious expression—you may want to speak with a lawyer. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 reversed the district court decision, ruling that the recitation of the pledge did not constitute an establishment of religion. Together, these laws protect private religious expression but prohibit government action to advance, coerce, or endorse religion in the public schools. Religious expression in the classroom continues to be a contentious issue, with strong case law supporting both sides. When they object to certain school practices, the parents often seek permission for their children to skip the offending lesson or class – to opt out – rather than try to end the practice schoolwide. At times, however, teachers act in an uninvited and overtly religious manner toward students and are asked by school administrators to refrain. March 2011 While it does not appear that making religion an outlaw in public schools was the intent of the founders, nor was it the practice in America before 1947, the Everson case set the stage for other challenges to religious practices in public schools. In the 1963 cases of School … (Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images), Shifting Boundaries: The Establishment Clause and Government Funding of Religious Schools and Other Faith-Based Organizations, Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, proponents and opponents of Darwin’s theory of evolution, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Good News Club v. Milford Central School District, Religious activities and the principle of equal access. For instance, in Parents for Privacy v. Dallas School District No. These guidelines, addressing the extent to which religious expression and activity are permitted in public schools, were originally issued in 1995. One leading case is ACLU v. Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education (1996), in which the senior class of a New Jersey public high school selected the student speaker by a vote without knowing in advance the contents of the student’s remarks. (The new survey finds that 8% of teens in public school have ever seen a teacher lead the class in prayer, and the same share have ever had a teacher read to the class from the Bible as an example of literature.). Two years ago, in the Town of Greece v. Galloway, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of the city council to have pre-meeting prayers.”, “Liberty Counsel has some legal advice for an atheist in Georgia who opposed a public display of the Christian cross during Memorial Day. Can students be compelled to participate in a Christmas-themed music program? Federal courts, they point out, consistently have interpreted the First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of religion to forbid state sponsorship of prayer and most other religious activities in public schools. The case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, reached the Supreme Court in 2004, but the justices did not ultimately decide whether the phrase was acceptable. What has the Supreme Court said about free expression? So far, lower appellate courts have not extended the principles of the school prayer decisions to university commencements (Chaudhuri v. Tennessee, 6th U.S. The court reasoned that the project was not intended as a forum for the expression of students’ private views but rather as a school activity for which school officials would be held responsible. In Hsu v. Roslyn Union Free School District No. Speech by students in public secondary schools (for cases involving teachers' free-speech rights, see Public employees, below). The guidelines highlight these four general principles: A case decided by the 9th U.S. Government Funding of Faith-Based Organizations Religious groups have cited those guarantees in support of student religious speech and in efforts to obtain school sponsorship and resources for student religious clubs. The district court concluded that the curriculum had both the purpose and effect of advancing certain faiths while denigrating the beliefs of others. The following day, Tyler Harper, a student at the school, wore a T-shirt that on the front read, “Be Ashamed, Our School Has Embraced What God Has Condemned,” and on the back, “Homosexuality Is Shameful, Romans 1:27.” School officials asked him to remove the shirt and took him out of class while they attempted to persuade him to do so. In that case, a public school science teacher refused to remove religious signs and a Bible from his classroom. Soon after the Everson decision, the Supreme Court began specifically applying the religion clauses to activities in public schools. “School board members of a Pennsylvania high school have voted to replace prayer at this year’s graduation ceremony with a moment of silence. Many civil libertarians and others, meanwhile, voice concern that conservative Christians and others are trying to impose their values on students. Quite the contrary, she wrote, the policy is completely neutral since it requires all organizations to open their membership and leadership to all students. But at least one conservative constituency largely is still waiting for its day in the high court. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Writing in dissent, Judge Alex Kozinski asserted that the school’s sexual harassment policy was far too vague and sweeping to support a restriction on all anti-gay speech. Circuit Court of Appeals held that the county’s flier distribution policy was unconstitutionally discriminatory. Of all the Supreme Court rulings supporting religious opt-outs, perhaps the most significant came in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), which upheld the right of members of the Old Order Amish to withdraw their children from formal education at the age of 14. Some parents, teachers and school officials read that as barring any type of religious expression in a public school — but that is not what federal courts have said. In 1985, a year after Congress passed the equal access law, school officials in Omaha, Nebraska, refused a student request for permission to form a Christian club at a public high school. On several occasions, members of the court have suggested that public schools may teach “the Bible as literature,” include lessons about the role of religion and religious institutions in history or offer courses on comparative religion. The Supreme Court’s decisions about officially sponsored religious expression in schools consistently draw a distinction between religious activities such as worship or Bible reading, which are designed to inculcate religious sentiments and values, and “teaching about religion,” which is both constitutionally permissible and educationally appropriate. In one example, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals underscores the difficulties that school officials still can face when students exercise their right to religious expression on school property. The courts have drawn a sharp distinction between officially sponsored religious speech, such as a benediction by an invited clergyman at a commencement ceremony, and private religious speech by students. The ACLU of New Jersey (2007) filed a religious discrimination case on behalf of a Muslim student who had to choose between following his religious beliefs that forbid him from entering buildings with foreign religious symbols and attending his public high school graduation that was scheduled to … Contributions are tax-deductible in accordance with IRS rules and regulations. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits the federal government or any state from interfering with a person’s religious practice, though this freedom may be limited by civil or criminal law. Those schools took the view that prayer and Bible reading in public schools were constitutionally impermissible, even if wholly student initiated. Alito wrote that the court denied review in this case due to “important unresolved factual questions,” and that “the 9th Circuit’s understanding of free speech rights of public school teachers is troubling and may justify review in the future.”. The issue of home schooling is a good example. First, the United States Supreme Court has been particularly mindful of the coercive risks associated with organized religious expression in the public schools. This endorsement of students’ freedom of speech did not entirely clarify things for school officials trying to determine students’ rights. Under these opt-out programs, parents do not have to explain their objection, religious or otherwise, to participation by their children. A civil rights attorneycan explain how the law applies to your situation, how you might approach school officials to resolve the problem, and any legal options that may be available if the school doesn’t respond. In Adler v. Duval County School Board (1996), for example, the 11th U.S. Pray for the protection of religious expression in public schools. Freedom of Religious Expression in Public Schools. Student groups that are officially recognized by Hastings enjoy certain privileges, including access to school facilities and funding. And the results have made the rules for religious expression far more complex. The court concluded that a “reasonable observer” would understand that the star and crescent combination and the menorah had secular as well as religious meanings. The Supreme Court later extended Widmar’s notion of equal access to nonstudent groups. Because there were many student groups devoted to different and frequently opposing causes, the court determined that no reasonable observer would see the school’s recognition of a religious group as an official endorsement of the group’s religious views. The dissenters argued, unsuccessfully, that state financial support for a proselytizing journal violated the Establishment Clause. “The First Amendment right of free speech and right to practice any faith, or no... © Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. In general, then, the courts have ruled that public schools have substantial discretion to regulate the religious expression of teachers during instructional hours, especially when students are required to be present. School districts limit teachers’ religious expression to avoid violations of the establishment clause, which requires strict separation between church and state. Similarly, teachers may disclose their religious identity; for instance, they need not refuse to answer when a student asks, “Do you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah?” or “Did I see you at the Islamic center yesterday morning?”. Christmas-themed music programs also have raised constitutional concerns. The decision was similar to an earlier ruling by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Illinois High School Association was constitutionally obliged to accommodate Orthodox Jewish basketball players who wanted to wear a head covering, despite an association rule forbidding headgear. Not always easy to determine exactly what constitutes indoctrination or school sponsorship of and. Involves a narrow exception from the dress code, rather than young children schools were indistinguishable from for. Offered useful guidance summarizing constitutionally protected school prayer facilities and Funding non-partisan organization have. 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