Discussion Group Report

Religion and Public Education

October 1999

By Richard Layton

The Religious Freedom Amendment, strongly opposed by education organizations, mainstream religious groups, and civil liberties groups, failed to get enough votes to pass in the U.S. House of Representatives this past June. It would have embroiled school districts and communities in prolonged divisive conflicts over religious activities in the classroom, and it would have cleared the way for massive tax support to sectarian and other institutions.

In an article with the same title as the present one, Edd Doerr, the executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty, describes the current status of the controversy over separation of church and state. He says that two weeks after the above-mentioned vote, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held the first of three hearings and concluded that the relevant Supreme Court rulings and other developments have pretty much brought public education into line with the religious neutrality required by the First Amendment and the increasingly pluralistic nature of our society. "A fair balance has been established between the free exercise rights of students and constitutional obligations of neutrality."

In 1995 the U.S. Department of Education issued guidelines called "Religious Expression in Public Schools," which grew out of another publication that same year by a broad coalition of 36 religious and civil liberties groups. Julie Underwood of the National School Boards Association says inquiries to her organization about what is or is not permitted have dropped almost to the vanishing point since the publication of the former document. That same year President Clinton directed the secretary of education to send the guidelines to every school district. They have proved useful to school boards, administrators, teachers, students, parents and religious leaders. Following is a summary of them.

Permitted: "Purely private religious speech by students"; nondisruptive individual or group prayer, grace before meals, religious literature reading, student speech about religion or anything else, including that intended to persuade, so long as it stops short of harassment; private baccalaureate services; teaching about religion; inclusion by students of religious matter in written or oral assignments where not inappropriate; student distribution of religious literature on the same terms as other material not related to school curricula or activities; some degree of right to excusal from lessons objectionable on religious or conscientious grounds, subject to applicable state laws; off-campus released time or dismissed time for religious instruction; teaching civic values; student-initiated "equal access" religious groups of secondary students during noninstructional time.

Prohibited: School endorsement of any religious activity or doctrine; coerced participation in religious activity; engaging in or leading student religious activity by teachers, coaches, or officials acting as advisors to student groups; allowing harassment of or religious imposition on "captive audiences"; observing holidays as religious events or promoting such observance; imposing restrictions on religious expression more stringent than those on non-religious expression; allowing religious instruction by outsiders on school premises during the school day.

Required: "Official neutrality regarding religious activity."

Secretary Riley urged school districts to use the guidelines or to develop their own, preferably in cooperation with parents, teachers, and the "broader community." President Clinton on May 30 declared, "Since we've issued these guidelines, appropriate religious activity has flourished in our schools, and there apparently has been a substantial decline in the contentious argument and litigation that has accompanied this issue for too long."

There remain three areas in which problems continue: proselytizing by adults in public schools, music programs that fall short of the desired neutrality, and teaching appropriately about religion.

The late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan summed up the constitutional ideal neatly, "It is implicit in the history and character of American public education that the public schools serve a uniquely public function: the training of American citizens in an atmosphere free of parochial, divisive, or separatist influence of any sort--an atmosphere in which children may assimilate a heritage common to all American groups and religions. This is a heritage neither theistic nor atheistic, but simply civic and patriotic."