What would a school prayer amendment do?

Amendments that would restore state-written prayers.

The Supreme Court decisions of the 1960's invalidated the practice of state-written or state-mandated prayer. In Engle v. Vitale (1962), for example, the Court struck down a prayer written by the New York State Board of Regents, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings on us, our parents, our teachers and our Country." Typically, these prayers were recited at the beginning of the school day. Some early prayer Amendments sought to restore the power of the state to formulate such prayers and have them said on a voluntary basis. Very few people currently advocate this type of amendment.

Amendments that would allow group prayers in the public schools.

Recognizing the danger of having the state write prayers for all students, many school prayer amendments instead seek to allow teachers to lead classes in prayer on a voluntary basis. One current prayer amendment, for example, reads as follows: "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions." The words sound innocuous enough, but the effect would be to allow a teacher to lead a group of students (eg., his or her class) in prayer if he/she so choose.

Amendments that would allow for voluntary prayer.

The vaguest of the school prayer amendments are those that simply legalize "voluntary" prayer in the public schools. Another recently proposed amendment, for example, stipulates that "Nothing in this constitution shall prohibit the inclusion of voluntary prayer in any public school program or activity." Broadly interpreted, it would allow the state to include prayer in any school program, so long as the prayer was said voluntarily. It would also seem to allow teachers to lead their classes in prayer.

Additionally, we note that, on the state level, many religious conservatives advocate moment of silence laws, i.e., laws that would establish a moment of undirected silence in the public schools during which students can pray, meditate, or daydream so long as it is done silently. While such laws appear to be constitutional on the basis of recent Supreme Court rulings (Wallace v. Jaffree, 1985), most separationists consider such laws unnecessary (since school students already have the right to pray). Additionally, separationists note that moment of silence laws, while technically legal, can be implemented in an unconstitutional manner as, for example, when teachers clearly indicate that they wants their students to pray during those moments of silence.

Separationists would object to all three categories of school prayer amendments on both Constitutional and practical grounds.