Prayers in School

I watched Indiana Lawmakers last night, and there was a very thoughtful discussion about prayer in school. As a former educator, I have some thoughts on this topic.

For starters, the Indiana General Assembly needs to stop addressing the issue (seemingly every session). Moving targets are hard to hit, and changing rules make for difficult compliance.

Also, most advocates on any side of the issue need to be mindful of a few parameters.

First, because a school is a government institution, it has to be careful that it does not suppress students' right to religion. This means that students can pray in their own time and space; students can do projects on religion to the degree that they want to; they can write essays about their religious experience; and the bible can be used as a primary source for literature lessons, should students choose to use it.

Of course, there's also another side to that coin.

Again, a school is a governmental institution and it needs to be careful that it does not endorse any particular religion or selectively allow student religious expression. To the degree that a school allows for students to write about their religious experience, this becomes problematic when the school allows the Christian student to express religion but disallows the Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu student from doing so. Further, the school itself can not be seen to be endorsing religion. This includes such things as having explicitly Christian-oriented events, i.e. a "Christmas" program.

We need to be mindful of the balance, and I believe that 50 years' worth of 1st amendment jurisprudence is reasonably clear.

I could write much more on this, i.e. perhaps it's inappropriate for the Speedway Town Council to conduct official prayer sessions? However, this is a fraught topic and it seems that the more it's discussed, the less people agree on it.