Student-Initiated Prayer is a Protected Form of Free Speech.
It is well settled that the First Amendment fully protects
the free speech rights of students. Moreover, the Supreme Court has emphasized
that religious speech is entitled to the same protections as secular speech
under the First Amendment.
In this way, student-initiated prayer is a form of private
speech that is constitutionally protected in the public schools. For public
school students, this means that they may pray privately over their lunch,
before a test or in any number of situations that may arise during the normal
course of a school day. Students may also pray alone or with fellow students
during non-instructional time to the same extent that they may engage in other
nonreligious or free expression activities. Additionally, students have the
right to promote and participate in their “See You at the Pole” events—student-initiated
and student-led annual prayer gatherings held at local school flagpoles.
In keeping with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, school
officials may not restrict students from exercising their right to free speech
and religious expression at any time during the normal course of a school day
as long as their speech is not vulgar, lewd or plainly offensive, does not
cause a substantial disturbance in the school or invade the rights of others.
Thus, students may speak to other students about their religious beliefs; read
their Bibles; distribute religious literature; address their religious beliefs
in a class assignment; and wear religious symbols/T-shirts.
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There is a difference between, say, Jewish prayer and Christian or Islamic prayer: most Christian and Islamic churches consider conversion of infidels a high priority duty, to the point where you will find Evangelical missionaries illegally entering Iran and other Islamic countries to convert children , even against the will of their parents.
If I could feel safe from fanatics that will try to overstep their boundaries and that go after my children, I would totally agree on school prayer. But in today's world I will take any legal protection I can for my kids .
Just as the article stated the First Amendment protects free speech. Not only privately but also in a group of students such as the event "See you at the Pole". The constitution also says we have religous freedom, but if they take away the right to pray in school wouldn't that be contradicting what they're telling us we can do?
Praying to oneself shouldn't disrupt people around him/her praying. It's a private talk with that person and God. In doing so, no person SHOULD be distracted from prayer being allowed in school. If somebody prays just for attention and makes a scene about it, then that problem needs to be dealt with privately and handily.
it's completely true that students should be allowed to pray in school, i'm completely for that, and i have prayed in school before. However, i've heard the saying "my rights end where your nose begins" and i completely agree. Yes i have the right to pray, but the other students have a right to not have to listen, so i should respect them by praying quietly to myself.
To give full use of the First Amendment, prayer significantly should be allowed. It gives a person a sense of mind and gives him/her time recollect his/her thoughts. Unless this person disrupts other fellow students, there is no reason prayer should not be allowed in schools.
This is absolutely true. Students have absolute freedom to pray anytime they wish, as long as they do so without infringing upon others rights by bullying them, coercing them into joining the prayer, taking class time for a prayer group, interfering with the classroom schedule, etc. Why religious people continue to rail that students should have the right to personal prayer in school is beyond me. They DO have that right.
I grew up in the Assembly of God church, and carried my Bible around with me on top of my stack of books. I prayed over my meals, over my tests and pretty much any time I thought of it. No one ever stopped me. Why would they? I wasn't doing anything to them.
Now, when I tried to pass out tracts to my fellow-students, as directed by my church leadership, then I crossed a line. Even then, I wasn't disciplined by school authorities, but, looking back, I realize how very inappropriate it was.
Corporate prayer or compulsory prayer or teacher-led prayer or official prayer has NO PLACE in schools. This doesn't in any way interfere with the individual rights of students to freedom to practice their faith.
I agree with everything you said, except for the part about crossing the line when handing out tracts. What is wrong with that? Would you oppose a student handing out tracts inviting people to a new teen social club or to their band's concert that weekend? Why is religious advertising always attacked?
I would say that this type of behavior would certainly cross the line if teachers or administrators were handing out these tracts as that could come off as the school pushing one religious view or belief. Students should have the freedom to promote whatever cause they choose to, so long as that cause is not in support of any direct harm to others.
I agree with your point. I do think it is okay (from a legal standpoint) for students to hand out tracts, just like any other opinion paper or invitation they might give to a fellow-student, as long as it is not done with the endorsement of the school or a teacher.
When I say that I believe I "crossed a line" in doing this, it was more of a personal line of which I feel a deeper sense of personal shame than I feel about other activities I engaged in as a fundamentalist Christian/public school student. Most religious tracts (in my experience) are pretty intensively confrontational and condemnatory (at least the ones provided by my church at that time), and as far as I'm concerned, getting offensive with one's message IS inappropriate to the school setting. No one has to read the tract; therefore the activity should not be illegal. But by its very nature, what I did was offensive and (quite rightly) made me a pariah. If I could go back and change the way I was raised, and counsel my child self from my adult perspective... well, let's just say my life back then would have been quite different.
Is any free speech on the part of the students protected, even if it is a form of bullying? While the intention of student-initiated prayer is usually not to make others feel uncomfortable or left out, I can speak from personal experience that it has that effect.
Sorry that you feel uncomfortable, but that is something that everyone has to learn to be comfortable with. If you happen to move to a big city like New York, there are going to be far more uncomfortable public display's going on than some of your friends praying together in the classroom. Try to see it not as being left out but as allowing your classmates the freedom to practice their religion.
As far as student initiated bullying, that is not protected by the first amendment because bullying is not a recognized religion. Sure there may be a cult that one could say they are a part of to try to get away with doing practically everything, those actions are not protected under the first amendment. Prayer may make some others feel uncomfortable but it certainly doesn't do any harm.
those who do not adhere to their certain brand of worship. While this happens all over the US it is most seen in the places where Fundamentalism and Evangelical Christianity enjoys the majority.
Students who are Jewish, Catholic, other religions that are different all will be bullied pushed around and beat up. They cannot turn to the teachers or principals in most cases since those people are of the same sect and mindset. Many children end up taking their own lives rather than to put up with the constant harassment.
Prayer does do harm, especially when used as a weapon. One lone child who is Jewish (or any other sect) surrounded by a dozen of his fellow first graders who are yelling to him he is going to die and burn and be tortured all because he was born into the wrong clan. That does harm, more than you could ever realize.
Finally a question for you. If you were still in school and it was an Islamic area where the kids threatened every day to play "Kill the Infidel" would you just shrug it off and learn to be comfortable?
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