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School prayer
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School prayer in its most common usage refers to state approved prayer by students in state schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, organized prayer may be required, permitted, or proscribed. The separation of church and state, in the United States, is one legal reason given for proscribing state sanctioned school prayers. Freedom of conscience, as in Canada, is another. This article focuses on national policy towards organized prayer in public (state-supported) schools.
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Encyclopedia
School prayer in its most common usage refers to state approved prayer by students in state schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, organized prayer may be required, permitted, or proscribed. The separation of church and state, in the United States, is one legal reason given for proscribing state sanctioned school prayers. Freedom of conscience, as in Canada, is another. This article focuses on national policy towards organized prayer in public (state-supported) schools. In the countries discussed in this article, unless stated otherwise private schools are free to organize prayers or not, as they see fit.
United States
In the United States, public schools are prohibited from sponsoring religious observances such as daily prayer. The legal basis for this prohibition is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which requires that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
" (Originally, the amendment applied only to the central government, but the Fourteenth Amendment had the effect of applying it to all levels of government.)
Prayer itself is not forbidden while at school. Regarding the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the courts have consistently ruled that students' expressions of religious views through prayer or otherwise cannot be abridged unless they can be shown to cause substantial disruption in the school.
The issue has been controversial in the United States since the early 20th century. In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, school days, in some parts of the country, customarily opened with an oral prayer or Bible reading. From time to time, religious minorities would object to the particular observance performed in the 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 King James Bible in Wisconsin public schools. This ruling was based on the state constitution and only applied in Wisconsin, but, like other challenges elsewhere in the country, provided a precedent for federal rulings to come later.
Those rulings were two landmark Supreme Court decisions, Engel v. Vitale [1962] and Abington School District v. Schempp [1963] (which included the well publicised case of Murray v. Curlett), establishing the current prohibition on state-sponsored prayer in schools. Following these two cases came the Court's decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman [1971]. This ruling established the so-called "Lemon test" which states that in order to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment any practice sponsored within state run schools (or other public, state sponsored activities) must: 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.
Reinstatement of state-sponsored prayer has been attempted in different forms in a number of areas of the U.S. Some jurisdictions have introduced a "moment of silence" or "moment of reflection" when a student may, if he or she wishes to, offer a silent prayer.
Since the 1990s, controversy in the courts has tended to revolve around prayer at school-sponsored extracurricular activities. Some courts have allowed student prayers from the podium at graduation exercises, but, in Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe [2000], the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling invalidating prayers conducted over the public address system prior to high school games at state school facilities before a school-gathered audience.
Proponents of school-sponsored prayer are largely, but not exclusively, Christians of various denominations. However, some major Christian denominations are opposed to the practice. Many of the key cases against government-sponsored school prayer have been filed by Christians in regions of the country where they are a minority, such as the Catholic and Mormon families who filed in Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe in the overwhelmingly Southern Baptist Texas Gulf Coast.
United Kingdom
In England and Wales, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 states that all pupils in state schools must take part in a daily act of collective worship, unless their parents request that they be excused from attending. The majority of these acts of collective worship are required to be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character", with two exceptions:
- Religious schools, which should provide worship appropriate to the school's religion (although most religious schools in the UK are Christian.)
- Schools where the Local Education Authority's Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education has determined that Christian worship would not be appropriate for part or all of the school.
Despite there being a statutory requirement for schools to hold a daily act of collective worship, many do not. OFSTED's 2002-03 annual report , for example, states that 80% of secondary schools are failing to provide daily worship for all pupils.
France
As a declared 'laicist' (roughly 'religiously neutral', secular) state, France has no school prayers. In fact, public servants are advised to keep their religious faith private, and may be censured if they display it too openly. The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools goes beyond restricting prayer in schools, and bans the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by pupils in public primary and secondary schools.
Turkey
The predominantly Muslim country of Turkey is in the public sphere a strongly secular nation. In this regard, it is much like France, on whose system of laicism its founder Kemal Atatürk modeled the rules on religion when he reformed his country in the early 20th century. School prayer is therefore unknown, and suspected religious motivations can cause serious difficulties for public servants. Although, courses of religion and morals (which are dominantly Islamic) are compulsory to all students during the last years of elementary and throughout high school during which various Islamic prayers and verses are taught and tested for.
See also
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