Religion, in Schools

In the United States, religion and its place within the public school walls has been a source of ongoing controversy for well over 150 years. Under the rubric of secularism, the early common schools of the nineteenth century generally favored a loosely Protestant ethos, and the textbooks and daily practices tended to reflect this. Textbooks generally carried an overt Protestant orientation and could be fiercely anti Catholic, with some even warning against the evils of “popery.” Many public schools began their days with collective prayers and readings out of the King James Version of the Bible. Such vaguely Protestant practices were viewed by the courts as secular, and consequently, unproblematic. These daily practices would remain the norm in many public schools—but not all—until the mid-twentieth century.

The most important change regarding religion and public schooling occurred during the early 1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court more narrowly defined secularism. In a series of Supreme Court decisions, statesponsored prayer was invalidated and then a year later, compulsory Bible readings. In each instance, the court ruled that nonspecific, nondenominational religious exercises were still state-sponsored religious, not secular, exercises and, as such, were banned under the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution. Subsequent court decisions invalidated (a) bans on the teaching of evolution in public schools and (b) state requirements to teach creationism if evolution were taught in public schools, as well as legislated “moment of silence” mandates. Since the 1960s, secularism has meant that public schools could neither favor nor disfavor religion. Public schools were and are free to teach about various religions and religious history, but they cannot teach religion as “truth” or as history or science.

While there was strong support for the Supreme Court's redefinition of secularism, some Protestants strenuously objected to the elimination of collective school prayer and Bible readings. By the late 1970s, as part of a larger movement, Protestant conservatives mobilized in hopes of gaining a large enough political majority to roll back these recent court decisions. One part of their agenda was to return more overt religious practices and displays to the public school while eliminating those aspects that were considered a threat to faith, under the rubric of fostering a common morality for an increasingly diverse America. As a consequence, movement activists employed a multifaceted strategy focused on (a) running like-minded adherents for the local school board or securing their appointment to the state board of education and (b) litigation, particularly in the areas of curriculum, student, and faculty religious expression, and providing public monies for parents who send their children to private religious schools.

However, beginning in the 1960s, the religious and political culture was moving in simultaneous and contradictory directions. While many Americans were increasingly public regarding their Protestant devotion, there was an explosion of religious innovation and exploration, with over half of the current 2,000 religious organizations forming after 1960. Such heterodoxy has been a hallmark of American religious culture, which has also been remarkably individualistic, entrepreneurial, and idiosyncratic since the colonial era.

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