The U.S. Department of Education will soon put out guidance around “protecting the right to prayer” in schools, President Donald Trump announced Monday—an effort that comes amid a number of states pushing up against the church-state divide, but one that would also reinforce a right students already have.
Trump, who made the announcement during a Religious Liberty Commission meeting focused on public education, did not offer specifics on what the guidance could look like. He touted it alongside his efforts to roll back protections for transgender students and to kill “the woke agenda” in schools.
The guidance would come as Republican-led states have sought to increase the presence of Christian teachings in schools—with Oklahoma ordering teachers to include the Bible in their curriculum; Texas approving a controversial curriculum with Bible-infused lessons for elementary schools; and Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas greenlighting laws requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in classrooms. (Judges have issued rulings against all three of those states’ laws.)
In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer granted parents the right to opt their children out of lessons with LGBTQ+ materials due to religious objections.
On Monday, Trump said Bibles had been found in schools historically, but claimed that students are being “indoctrinated” with “anti-religious propaganda” and being “punished for their religious beliefs.”
“As president, I will always defend our nation’s glorious heritage, and we will protect the Judeo-Christian principles of our founding, and we will protect them with vigor,” he said. “We have to bring back religion in America, bring it back stronger than ever before.”
He argued there had been a rise in “anti-Christian” mentality and invoked the recent shooting during a Roman Catholic school’s morning mass that killed two young children late last month as evidence of “far too many violent attacks perpetrated against Americans of faith.”
When it comes to the practice of religion at school, the Education Department has previously issued guidance reinforcing the Supreme Court’s previous rulings: that teachers and school officials cannot lead classes in prayer or conduct devotional readings from the Bible, nor can they attempt to compel students to participate in prayer.
But, the department wrote in the guidance, nothing prohibits a student from voluntarily praying during the school day, and students may pray with other students. They can also attempt to persuade their peers about religious topics. Student speakers at school events are free to include religious content and prayer in their messages.
In the classroom, courts have decided there’s a clear distinction between teaching religion in a devotional fashion and teaching about different religions’ historical development and influence; schools cannot do the former. While students’ right to pray at school is constitutionally protected, school-sponsored prayer doesn’t fall within that right.
