by Jeremy Dys, Senior Counsel • 4 minutes
In Texas, the law allows public school districts to provide time for students and educators to pray or read the Bible or other religious texts during school.
Known as “SB11,” the statute said that school boards had to vote by March 1 whether to adopt a policy requiring schools in their district to provide a period of the school day during which students—at the direction of their parents—may pray and read their Bible or other religious text. Under the law, such religious activity would occur in a designated space, pursuant to explicit parental permission, and would never be broadcast over the school public address system.
Implementing this policy was an opportunity for school districts to show how respectful they are to the presence of religion on a public-school campus. Doing so would be a clear acknowledgement of tolerance and inclusion of religion, especially for so many students and teachers whose faith is a central part of their lives.
But most school districts missed a key opportunity to offer something of great benefit to their students and employees. The vast majority voted against implementing the measure. Only 15 out of 1,200 school districts in the Lone Star State voted in favor.
Many districts rejected the optional policy due to “data and safety concerns,” since for accountability purposes, particularly in larger schools, there would need to be a record of the students who participated in the prayer time. Apparently the “record” of students participating in biology class poses no threat, but students praying and reading religious texts does?
Other school districts across the state invoked the tired phrase, “separation of Church and State,” in order to scare school officials into enforcing a public-school campus entirely sanitized of religion. These vocal opponents of SB11 fret that respecting and tolerating the religious practices of public-school students would cause division, steal valuable instructional time, or even “squeeze in Christian religious opportunities and principles into the school day itself.”
That was the concern of one political scientist interviewed on the topic whose hand wringing revealed she hoped school officials would reject the tolerant-of-religion approach of SB11. After all, the “scientist” intoned these are “educational professionals, and they know what their principal task is, it’s to teach these students (to) prepare for adult life.”
Except that is emphatically not the duty of “educational professionals.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds said more than 100 years ago, it is “the natural duty of the parent to give his children education suitable to their station in life.” That may mean employing professional educators to do so, but, as Justice McReynolds recognized just two years later, “The child is not the mere creature of the state.” If he were, then perhaps “educational professionals” might determine their future.
Rather, Justice McReynolds continued, “those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (To be clear, by “those who nurture him” Justice McReynolds meant the student’s parents.)
More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court reinforced the notion that parents drive the educational (and religious) upbringing of their students, declaring that “the right of parents ‘to direct the religious upbringing of their’ children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom.”
And, so, SB11 rested on the solid legal footing as one way of schools accommodating “the natural duty of the parent” in directing the religious upbringing of their children. Can we not tolerate a few moments for students to center themselves through prayer and the reading of their religious text and adopt a policy that supports it?
A state-enforced secularism lacks neutrality to one of the most central aspects of the human condition: religion. Wouldn’t a welcoming, tolerant public school recognize the important place religion holds in the lives of students across the State of Texas?
In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court further rejected the idea that the government must suppress private religious expression in public schools to avoid violating the Establishment Clause. The Court emphasized that the Constitution protects private religious exercise, even in a public setting.
Rather, the Court noted, “The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.”
Can school districts not muster “respect and tolerance” for religious views during a small portion of the public school day? That they must resort to “censorship and suppression” by demanding school boards reject the opportunity SB11 affords its parents and students reveals much about their opinion of freedom. To them, the State of Texas should enforce freedom for the secular, but never the religious.
“Respect for religious expressions”—yes, even of public-school students—“is indispensable to life in a free and diverse Republic,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch in Kennedy.
We hear a lot about “mutual respect and tolerance” for different points of view, often from school board officials and administrators themselves. School districts had the prime opportunity to show their resolve to tolerate the religious needs of their students by giving them a small period of the day to pray and read their Bible. They chose not to do so.
Many of the school districts that rejected the bill probably hoped to set an example of freedom and diversity for their students. But it seems they did quite the opposite.
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