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Home » Legal » High School Civil Liberties Project » Religious Freedom
Frequently Asked Questions on: Religious Freedom What exactly is Religious Freedom? The First Amendment states that every person has the right to practice his or her own religion or no religion at all. Our country’s founding fathers knew that the best way to protect religious liberty was to keep it out of the government, and so they created the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantied a separation between state and religion. This fundamental freedom is, arguably, the reason why the U.S. has managed to avoid many religious conflicts that have in the past led to the downfall of other societies. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment gives you the right to worship as you choose and government cannot penalize you for your beliefs. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from encouraging or promoting any religion in any way, and that includes supporting any sort of religion financially. Recently, there has been a great deal about school vouchers. School vouchers are grants given by the government to individual parents to send their children to private, often religious-affliliated school, instead of poor public schools. It is unconstitutional because the government is using taxpayers’ money to send children to schools where religion is taught. How does one know if the Government violates the First Amendment? In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Lemon vs. Kurtzman case, which created three tests for determining whether or not a particular government act or policy violated the separation of religion and state. The Lemon test says that in order to be constitutional the policy must:
Is it Constitutional to teach religion in public schools? No. Because the government runs the public schools, they must obey the First Amendment. That means that they may teach about the influences of religion in history, literature, and philosophy but they may not promote specific religious beliefs or practices as part of the curriculum. Since the government does not run private and parochial schools, the First Amendment does not apply, so those schools may teach whatever religious beliefs they believe are valid. Can my teacher start the day with a prayer? No. Prayers and scriptural readings violate the First Amendment because they promote a specific religion. This is a true even if the prayer is non-denominational (not of any particular religion.) Moments of silence might be unconstitutional if the reason they are being held is to encourage prayer. Can my public school have prayers at graduation? No. In 1992 the Supreme Court ruled in Lee v. Weisman, that graduation prayers are unconstitutional in public schools. Graduation prayers give a non-believer the feeling that their participation in the prayer is required. It does not matter who leads the prayer and what denomination it is or even if it is a nondenominational prayer, it still violates the constitution. Student led prayer is also considered unconstitutional. Just because a student or group leads the prayer, the ceremony, if students are required to come, is still a government-sponsored event and therefore violates the First Amendment. You can choose to have a private alternative event that includes prayer but it just cannot be school sponsored and cannot take place on school grounds. What if we put it to a vote? That does not change anything. Because every individual in the United States has certain fundamental rights that include religious liberty, these cannot be taken away even by a majority vote. Is it OK to ever pray in school? Yes. Individual students have the right to pray whenever they feel like, as long as they do not disrupt class or other educational activities, or try to force others to pray along with them. If a school official has told you that you cannot pray during the school day, then your rights have been violated. Can religious holidays be celebrated in school? It depends. While making Christmas stockings, or Easter eggs or Hanukkah dreidals is most likely permissible, because over the years these activities have become secular customs that many people of many backgrounds enjoy. But giving something like a Nativity pageant, which is full of much deeper religious meaning is unconstitutional. What about religious clubs or Bible distribution? Student organized Bible clubs are permissible as long as three conditions are met:
The organized distribution of Bibles or any other holy book during the school day is considered unconstitutional, even if teachers are not the ones actually handing out the Bibles. That’s because you may not use the school to spread religious doctrine during the time while students are required to be in school.
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