First Amendment In Schools

One of the largest problems public schools face today is the allowing of students their freedom of worship without it detracting from one’s education or being portrayed as an endorsement of sorts. This is because virtually all public school students are citizens of the United States of America, school systems and their administrators must carefully deal with the intersection of the establishment clause, free speech, and religious liberty. Public school students and teachers retain their First Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion and free speech during the school day, within a few constraints. Former Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas once wrote, “it can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights …show more content…
Similarly, students may wear religious clothing so long as it is not disruptive, and teachers may wear traditionally religious jewelry, such as a cross or a Star of David, but may not wear clothing that can be considered as an advertisement for their religion or practice of worship. Like most other issues regarding the First Amendment and schools, the broad guidelines for the free exercise of religion, and its limitations, have defined by the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts.
The Establishment Clause, the Free Exercise Clause, and the First Amendment as a whole, all came into play in the in the 1990 case Board of Education of West side Community Schools v. Mergens, in which a student at Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska, requested, and was denied, permission to form a Christian club at the school. The school argued that since organized student activities are an integral part of its educational mission, approval of the proposed Christian club would effectively incorporate religious activities into the school’s official program, thus endorsing participation in the religious club and providing the club with an official platform to …show more content…
The subject matter of the poster was specified by Zachary’s teacher: something for which he was thankful as the Thanksgiving holiday approached. His poster fell within the specified subject matter,” Alito wrote. “The poster was given discriminatory treatment because of the viewpoint that it expressed, because it expressed thanks for Jesus, rather than for some secular thing.” Alito said that even in a “closed forum,” such as a classroom, public schools may not engage in viewpoint discrimination unless the school’s action can pass “strict scrutiny,” the most rigorous form of judicial

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