Editor’s Note: This week, “The Wall of Separation” blog is featuring the essays and videos submitted by the winners of Americans United’s 2024 AU Student Contest, which asked high school and college students to reflect on their vision for church-state separation. Submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of Americans United.
In 2023, students at my high school swarmed into a mighty river flowing through the front gate. They carried pride flags and signs reading “Protect our Education” and “Teach the Truth.” Security guards watched but did not stop the students from walking out in protest against policies recently passed by our school board, headed by a conservative Christian.
These students walked away from a public school that did not respect their right to an education untainted by Christian ideology. Religious extremists erode church-state separation in public schools through book bans and promoting prayer in schools. In the past, regulations for non-establishment were stricter. As some guidelines dissolve, communities can protect themselves through education, protesting, and holding school authorities accountable.
Religious extremists have negatively affected the lives of students in my community by becoming school board trustees who directly vote on school policies, such as bans for books and curriculums that do not align with their theological beliefs. Religiously devoted parents also support these policies. A Washington Post study found that in the 2021-2022 school year, a mere 11 people were responsible for the majority of 1,000 challenges to books — many of which included themes of LGBTQ+ representation and racism. Board trustees and parents argue that they have the right to decide whether their children are exposed to “objectionable” topics in school libraries. While individuals can control what their own children read, they should not restrict what books are available to all students. Book bans, as the 19th, a Texas-based news organization put it, “internalize a sense of shame and isolation” for LGBTQ+ youth since their perspectives are depicted as unworthy of being shown and understood. Essentially, extremists use book and curriculum bans to push their religious narratives onto a wider population of students, at the inequitable cost of those whose stories lose representation.
Additionally, religious practice blurs with public education during prayer in schools. I attend a public high school with a vocal majority of Christian students. Before our cross-country races, my teammates huddle into a circle and pray, “Dear Heavenly Father…” My downcast eyes stare at my feet. They assume it’s a reverent stance, but it’s because I cannot meet their eyes. I fear they will find out that I am not religious. I fear the way they might side-eye me, the comments, rubbing their cross necklaces. I did not have the guts to tell my teammates I did not want to pray, let alone if my coach had been involved. Social pressure, from peers or school authorities, can coerce students into performing rituals against their beliefs.
A recent 2022 Supreme Court case highlights the risk nonbelievers and students of minority religions have of getting absorbed into practices of the majority religion. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District ruled in favor of a high school coach praying after a football game. Coach Kennedy, supposedly off-duty, wanted his post-game prayer to be considered “private” speech protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. However, as Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion states, this fails to consider that Kennedy has an extended history of praying on the football field and inviting student-athletes to join him. This pressures students, especially since their coach is an authoritative figure in their lives. Furthermore, Kennedy acts as an agent of the government, thus his religious speech infringes the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment — that the government cannot “establish” a religion or force people to engage in religious exercise.
In the past, guidelines for secularism were clearly defined. For example, in 1971 the Supreme Court created the Lemon Test with three basic standards to discern whether a government action is violating the Constitution’s Establishment Clause: (1) it must have a secular purpose, (2) it must not promote nor inhibit religion, and (3) it must not cause excessive entanglement between church and state. Accordingly, communities had the legal framework to defend religious neutrality in schools for years to come.
As a nation, we have been regressing on this issue of separation of church and state; the aforementioned 2022 Supreme Court decision overruled the Lemon Test. According to a 2022 statistic from Pew Research,, 49% of U.S. adults believe the Bible should have some or a great deal of influence on U.S. laws. Further, 28% believe that the Bible should influence U.S. laws more than the will of the people. Although half of American adults believe that bringing Christianity into public schools would be moral, the other half of the country may not appreciate having those religious views projected onto their children’s education. After all, constitutional principles cannot flexibly fluctuate to favor one religion.
Moving forward, communities can learn to recognize warning signs of religious doctrine in school settings. Educating students about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment more thoroughly would help them understand when their constitutional liberties are infracted. Additionally, people can apply the Lemon Test: asking whether there is a secular reason for a new bill or rule. This raised a red flag in my town when the school board banned critical race theory, passed outing policies for transgender students and rejected a textbook because it mentioned LGBTQ+ activist Harvey Milk. In response, students and adults assembled at board meetings and protested against religious ideology censoring education.
Moreover, communities must stay vigilant about who is elected to the school board and other positions of power. A concentrated number of people — such as devout parents challenging books, praying coaches, or school board members — often try to impose their religious ideology onto a wider group of students. Educators, parents, and others in my town combatted this by collecting signatures for a recall election and successfully removing the Christian school board president from office. Through the legal process, citizens can hold school authorities accountable when they do not respect church-state separation.
Ultimately, public schools should be a sanctuary for differing viewpoints, free from the divisive judgments ubiquitous elsewhere in our society. We need to protect these inclusive, accepting spaces. Forcing people to conform to one belief system denies the diversity that makes us human.
