Oklahoma’s Top Education Official Fights To Keep Student Prayer in Public Schools

The Oklahoma State Department of Education is fighting to protect the ability of public schools to broadcast prayers.The state superintendent, Ryan Walters, filed a lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Oklahoma seeking an injunction against a nonprofit that is trying to stop prayers in public schools, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF. Mr. Walters argues the FFRF is violating protections for religious expression. He cited a lawsuit the group filed against Achille Public Schools on behalf of a parent who expressed concern about the district broadcasting a student-led prayer over the intercom.“The Freedom From Religion Foundation has no stake in our schools, no authority over our communities,” the superintendent said in a press release. “Their threats are nothing more than a desperate attempt to erase faith from public life, and we will fight them at every turn.”In response to the lawsuit, FFRF said in a statement it “expects to continue our important work in Oklahoma regardless of frivolous lawsuits by Walters.”“The legal action comes after FFRF issued a cease-and-desist letter to an Oklahoma school for allowing a student to pray over the intercom, threatening litigation if the school did not comply with their radical agenda,” the statement said.The organization argued that the prayer in public schools is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The nonprofit previously filed a complaint against the Prague Elementary School in Oklahoma for hosting daily prayers during its announcement, and it says both schools have since stopped the routine.Mr. Walters has been an advocate for infusing religion into public schools. He has called the idea of separation of church and state a “false narrative.” During a Family Research Council summit in June 2024, he said, “The Supreme Court has been wrong. There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. It doesn’t exist.”“So we will bring God back to schools and prayer back in schools in Oklahoma. And we will fight back against that radical myth,” he said.While the First Amendment does not include the phrase “separation of church and state,” the Supreme Court ruled in the 1962 decision Engel v. Vitale that school-sponsored prayer violated the Establishment Clause, which has been interpreted as preventing the establishment of a national religion or giving preference to one religion over the other. Mr. Walters has also tried to include the Bible in public education. However, in March, the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked his plan to use taxpayer dollars to buy Bibles for every fifth to 12th grade classroom in the state. Mr. Walters is not alone in his effort to increase religious themes in education. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments at the end of April regarding the legality of what would become America’s first religious charter school.On Monday, the governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, issued an executive order that directs state agencies to review and eliminate polices that “exclude religious individuals or institutions from public programs, funds or benefits.”

Oklahoma’s Top Education Official Fights To Keep Student Prayer in Public Schools

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