Prayer in School

First source: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/50-years-later-how-school-prayer-rulingchanged-america

It seems that the first case that ever dealt with prayer in school was Engel Vs Vitale. Ever since
that case it has been a widespread controversy that has been used to point the blame of every
problem towards the education system. The fact that God is not allowed in schools is just one
of the many scapegoats that politicians and televangelists have used to either rile people up
or/and get money for their upcoming campaign for election (or simply want the money that is
sure to come).
Second source: http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-andcase-summary-engel-v-vitale
It all started with Engel V. Vitale where a parent was suing the school simply because the option
for prayer was around, even though they are given the option to not participate in the
nondenominational prayer.
*Side note* nondenominational prayer refers to where prayer is open or acceptable to
people of any Christian denomination, meaning anyone that is of any type of christianity is
accepted.
This case was then brought to the supreme court because it was an issue that was having
conflicts with the first amendment where it stated that government and religion should be two
separate entities, and to prevent any government interference with any religion. Because of this it
was obviously in desperate need in the supreme court to state whether this is constitutional or
not. when it came down to the voting it was set to an 8-1 vote where it was deemed
unconstitutional to pray in school because In his concurrence, Justice Douglas took an even
broader view of the Establishment Clause, arguing that any type of public promotion of religion,
including giving financial aid to religious schools violates the Establishment Clause
(uscourts.gov)
If the government was wrong and prayer being taken out of school caused so many criminals and
horrid acts to happen, Id like to have it back. Though that is all a giant lie. The morality of a
person cant be correlated to the frequency of government prayers in schools. After all, in the
golden days where daily teacher-led prayers were a thing, America had just as much social
problems, including segregated public schools. As ridiculous as it would be to blame teacher-led
prayer for racism or other social problems in the golden age of the 1950s to the early 1960s, it
makes absolutely no sense to blame the lack of prayer for our social problems today.
(firstamendmentcenter.org)

And it is not as if prayer is completely forbidden in schools, if one wishes to pray in school they
are allowed to. It was hard to understand the difference between government speech promoting
religion and student religious speech. Where the government is not allowed to speak in favor of
or against any religion, prohibited by the establishment clause of the first amendment, students
are allowed to, which is protected by the free-exercise and free speech clauses of the first
amendment.
So ultimately it comes down to the student to pray or not. Not the school. The school cant say
that they are not allowed to pray or that religion is banned, there are bible and religious clubs in
schools, but if the student doesnt wish to pray it cant be used against the school because it is the
student's choice.