President Trump ordered the removal of Obama-era discriminatory federal regulations that prohibited students and teachers from praying in public schools.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration would take steps to reinforce protections for students who would like to pray or practice their religion openly at public schools.
Initially reported in an NPR exclusive, Trump said that the Department of Education would mail letters to education officials across the country to remind them that neither students nor teachers could be denied their First Amendment right to practice their religion.
Further, federal funding for schools may be withheld if they do not allow students to freely practice their faiths.
The official Twitter account of the White House posted a video clip of the announcement, in which the president discussed the importance of sa***uarding the First Amendment right to freedom of religion in public schools.
"This afternoon, we're proudly announcing historic steps to protect the First Amendment right to pray in public schools," Trump said. "So, you have the right to pray, and that's a very important and powerful right. There's nothing more important than that, I would say."
John F. Kennedy was president when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in 1962. Not long after, he spoke in an address delivered in Washington, D.C. about the ruling. A clip of Kennedy's speech was republished on YouTube by the archive of Pathé News, known as British Pathé.
Although many would disagree with the court's decision, Kennedy said, they should all nevertheless support it to "maintain our constitutional principle." He also encouraged parents to increase the level of religious education given to children at home.
"I would think that it would be a welcome reminder to every American family that we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity, and we can make the true meaning of prayer much more important in the lives of all of our children," the Democratic Kennedy said.
Gerald Ford
Republican Gerald Ford ascended to the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. He ran his own presidential campaign in 1976 but was defeated by Jimmy Carter. While on the campaign trail in February of that year, Ford held a town hall in New Hampshire during which a man asked him his opinion of the issue of school prayer. Ford responded by referencing the Engel decision, with which he said he disagreed.
"That court decision in effect said there could be no prayer in public schools in the United States," Ford said at the time. "I read that decision very carefully. I read the dissenting opinion of [Justice] Potter Stewart carefully. I ascribe to his dissenting opinion, and therefore, I disagree with the Supreme Court decision."
Jimmy Carter
A Democrat, President Jimmy Carter said that he did not support government action to alter the effects of the Engel decision. As reported by The New York Times in 1979, he publicly stated his stance on yet another constitutional amendment that would restore the right of "voluntary prayer" in public schools. The amendment would go on to pass in the Senate but die in the House of Representatives.
"But in general, I think the government ought to stay out of the prayer business and let it be between a person and God," Carter said then, "and not let it be part of a school program under any tangible constraints, either a direct order to a child to pray or an embarrassing situation where the child would feel constrained to pray."
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