The Feds Push School Prayer

Last week the U.S. Department of Education offered some "guidance" on prayer and religious expression in public school. 

“The Trump Administration is proud to stand with students, parents, and faculty who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights in schools across our great nation,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Our Constitution safeguards the free exercise of religion as one of the guiding principles of our republic, and we will vigorously protect that right in America's public schools.”

To be clear, the rights of students to freely exercise their religion has never been in question. Well, okay-- the right of Christian students to freely exercise their religion has never been in question. What has been "in question" is the rights of school-adjacent adults to practice their religion in ways that pressure students to follow along. 

The guidance still recognizes some restrictions. They point out "Public schools may not sponsor prayer nor coerce or pressure students to pray. For example, a school principal may not lead a prayer at a mandatory school assembly." Also, you're allowed to shut down a student whose prayer disrupts class (as long as you are consistent in restricting other forms of class-disrupting speech). 

But there is still plenty of baloney here. Schools should not "favor secular views over religious ones or one religion over another." This follows the religious conservative view that secularism is just another religion (albeit a naughty anti-god one). That's incorrect (I get to it in greater lengths here and here) much like saying that the plate a meal is served on is one more food item. If I never talk to my students about what person they should marry when they grow up, that is not suggesting that they shouldn't get married at all-- it simply leaves that conversation for a more appropriate person to have at a more appropriate time in a more appropriate place. 

The not favoring one religion over another is also problematic. Exactly who gets to decide A) what counts as a legitimate religion and B) what counts as favoritism? 

The guidance calls for judging religious speech with same standards as secular speech, for exampling "a paper with religious content," which I think can assume refers to the bullshit case of the Oklahoma student who trolled her trans professor with a terrible religious content, just so she could make a fuss about it. 

The department cites the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the case of the football coach who wanted to pray on the fifty yard line and made it to the Supreme Court, where the justices decided in his favor by using a legal technique known as Making Shit Up (the scripture you're thinking of is Matthew 6:1-- Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them). Coach Kennedy promptly quit his job and went on the conservative speaker circuit.

In that vein, the regime's new guidance declares that "visible, personal prayer, even if there is voluntary student participation in such prayer, does not itself constitute coercion." As long as the teacher doesn't say, "Come pray with me" or "Points off for anyone who doesn't pray with me" or "I will think less of those of you who don't pray with me" it's okay. Even if it is obvious to the students that these are on the table. "Voluntary" is doing some real heavy lifting here.

Like the Kennedy case, this pretends that if a teacher isn't directly commanding students to join in, there is no coercion or endorsement going on. And it is certainly true that some students are pretty well inoculated against any such pressure (I am thinking of a Jewish student of mine whose elementary teacher tried to nudge her toward Jesus). 

But at the same time, these are the folks who are sure that students should not be exposed to any mention of sex or LGBTQ persons. If we were using a similar approach to religion, the rule would be that teachers can't even mention that any religions exist and any books that include characters who pray would be pulled from the library. 

Look, this is a tricky issue, with schools landing all over the place and finding a variety of ways to be wrong, from the school that forbid a student to pray in his graduation speech to the school where the superintendent opened an elementary choir concert with a Jedsus prayer. And just wait till some teacher decides to open class with an Islamic prayer or starts Transcendental Meditation club during the school day. Or when teachers start praying in front of the class for God to support a particular politician. 

If only there were a way to accommodate a variety of deeply held personal religious beliefs in a space shared by many members of a pluralistic society. It would be so important we could attach it to the Constitution, like an amendment. I think it would be important enough that we could put it first.

Seriously-- the framers covered this. Make a government-run institution like public schools a religion-free zone, in which no religions are required, practiced, or endorsed. Let people of all ages pursue their religious beliefs on their own time (particularly if they are adults in position of authority).

It will be messy and difficult at times, but certainly more valuable and useful for the health of society than, say, letting each group of believers hide together in their own silo, or allowing one group to dominate the school. It would require balance and negotiation and occasional pauses to think about where lines should be drawn and to reel in overzealous folks on one side or another, but all that would be good practice for living as an adult human in a pluralistic society. Yes, I realize that some folks are very anti-pluralism these days, but I don't think that's very American of them, and I look forward to the day when we can replace this not-very-helpful guidance.