Last week, Huntington High and three other area schools arranged assemblies during school time for an evangelical minister to present a religious program to recruit students. This was inappropriate and illegal and even more disturbing because it involved the coercion of students and the schools’ inability to respect their religious differences. The Establishment Clause, the first clause in the Bill of Rights, states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” and is interpreted as prohibiting favoring one religion over another. In 1802, Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Church, said that the Establishment Clause is “to build a wall of separation between church and state.” The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on many cases regarding religion and schools and has said that students can not be forced to attend or participate in religious activities in public schools. In McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948, the court ruled that religious leaders cannot give religious instruction in public schools during class time, which led to Zorach v. Clausen, which determined students could leave school for such instruction. In my middle and high school years, everyone, regardless of religious involvement, was dismissed an hour early […]

By : Mark McDowell Tags: