Title: Religion in the Public Schools | Pew Research Center
Headings: Religion in the Public Schools
Religion in the Public Schools
About this report
The Pillars of Church-State Law
Prayer and the Pledge
School prayer
The Pledge of Allegiance
School officials and student speech
Religion in the curriculum
Creationism and evolution
Study of the Bible
Holiday programs
Multiculturalism
Rights in and out of the classroom
Rights of students
Rights of parents
Rights of teachers and administrators
Religious activities and the principle of equal access

Content: Religious Displays and the Courts
June 2007
Government displays of religious symbols have sparked fierce battles. The Supreme Court stepped into those controversies when it ruled, in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) and Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township (1947), that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause applied to the states. The two clauses say, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Before those two court decisions, courts had applied the religion clauses only to actions of the federal government. Soon after the Everson decision, the Supreme Court began specifically applying the religion clauses to activities in public schools. In its first such case , McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), the high court invalidated the practice of having religious instructors from different denominations enter public schools to offer religious lessons during the school day to students whose parents requested them. A key factor in the court’s decision was that the lessons took place in the schools. Four years later, in Zorach v. Clauson, the court upheld an arrangement by which public schools excused students during the school day so they could attend religious classes away from school property. ( The new Pew Research Center survey finds that one-in-ten religiously affiliated teens in public school leave the school for religious activities.) Beginning in the 1960s, the court handed religious conservatives a series of major defeats.