--- title: Trump Vows ‘Big Action’ on School Prayer to Rally Evangelicals description: Legal experts say there's little the President can do without violating the Constitution. 'It's pandering to social conservatives.' canonical: https://time.com/5765829/trump-school-prayer-evangelicals/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-01-16T03:25:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T19:57:56.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Is Promoting School Prayer to Rally His Base og:description: 'It's pandering to social conservatives,' says one legal expert. og:url: https://time.com/5765829/trump-school-prayer-evangelicals/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt70d371468ea8e657/698a08e8096a9485506a79a2/trump-evangelicals-school-prayer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3906 og:image:height: 2197 og:image:alt: File: U.S. President Donald Trump's Third Year In The Oval Office og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Is Promoting School Prayer to Rally His Base twitter:description: 'It's pandering to social conservatives,' says one legal expert. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt70d371468ea8e657/698a08e8096a9485506a79a2/trump-evangelicals-school-prayer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Is Promising ‘Big Action’ on School Prayer to Rally Evangelical Voters > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=8adaf488-94c3-44e6-9bd2-3e21eb575cd6&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump's Top Pastor [Watch (HLS stream): Trump's Top Pastor](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/A9Hi3DBO.m3u8) (8:46)  _Published 2016-07-18. One of the most visible pastors supporting Donald Trump comes from the most unlikely of places: the small town of Easley, South Carolina. Trump’s candidacy has thrust televangelist Mark Burns into the national political spotlight for the first time._  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Updated: Dec 12, 2023 7:57 PM UTCPublished: Jan 16, 2020 3:25 AM UTC  President Donald Trump, center, prays during an 'Evangelicals for Trump' Coalition launch event in Miami, Florida, on Jan. 3, 2020. President Donald Trump, center, prays during an 'Evangelicals for Trump' Coalition launch event in Miami, Florida, on Jan. 3, 2020. Marco Bello—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Updated: Dec 12, 2023 7:57 PM UTCPublished: Jan 16, 2020 3:25 AM UTC President Donald Trump is promising “big action” to promote school prayer, tapping into the long-controversial issue of religion in public schools as he seeks to rally the evangelicals who were [key to his 2016](https://time.com/4565010/donald-trump-evangelicals-win/) election. “We will not allow faithful Americans to be bullied by the hard left,” Trump said at a rally with evangelical supporters at a Florida megachurch on Jan. 3\. “Very soon, I’ll be taking action to safeguard students’ and teachers’ First Amendment rights to pray in our schools. We’re doing a big action, Attorney General Bill Barr.” Trump is scheduled to announce “guidance on constitutional prayer in public schools” during an event in the Oval Office on Thursday, which is National Religious Freedom Day, according to his schedule released by the White House. “President Trump is committed to making sure that people of faith, particularly children, are not subjected to illegal punishment or pressure for exercising their constitutionally protected rights,” White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council Joe Grogan said during a press call Thursday. “The guidance will remind school districts of the rights of students, parents and teachers and will empower students and others to confidently know and exercise their rights.” The move is an update to guidance that was originally issued in 2003 and would require local schools to certify annually that they have no policy preventing participation in constitutionally protected prayer. It would require state education departments to report to the U.S. Education Department any schools that have failed to make that certification and any complaints against a school for denying someone the right to engage in prayer. The U.S. Education Department is also proposing a rule to strengthen the rights of religious student groups at public universities. “As a condition of funding, a public institution of higher education cannot deny a religious student group the same benefits, privileges and rights that other secular student groups have,” a senior administration official, speaking on background, said during Thursday’s call. While the First Amendment supports the free exercise of religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that public schools cannot promote prayer or religious symbols. The updated guidance does not introduce new legal requirements, but it reaffirms existing regulations and rights. “Private prayer, to the extent that it would ever be interfered with, is already protected by the First Amendment and there are very, very few cases where any government official has tried to interfere with a private student’s right to pray,” says Frank Ravitch, a Michigan State University law professor who has [written about school prayer](https://www.amazon.com/School-Prayer-Discrimination-Minorities-Dissenters/dp/1555534775). Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to support school prayer, [according to a Gallup poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/177401/support-daily-prayer-schools-dips-slightly.aspx) showing that overall American support for daily prayer in public school classrooms had fallen from 70% in 1999 to 61% in 2014\. Protestants and other Christians were also far more likely than people with no religious preference to support daily prayer in the classroom and student-led prayer at graduation ceremonies. And Trump has seen consistently high support from [white evangelicals](https://time.com/4577752/donald-trump-transformation-white-evangelicals/) throughout his presidency. Exit polls showed that Trump won 81% of the white evangelical vote in the 2016 general election, and a [December poll](http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/December%20Omni%202019/APNORC%5FReligion%5F2019-12-31%5Fr1.pdf) conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 79% of white evangelical Protestants approve of how Trump is handling his job as president. By comparison, less than half of all other Americans approve. There have been [some cracks in that support](https://time.com/5753288/christianity-today-trump-removal-from-office/), notably when _Christianity_ _Today,_ a leading evangelical magazine, published an [editorial in December](https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/trump-should-be-removed-from-office.html) calling for Trump’s [impeachment and removal](https://time.com/5751699/donald-trump-impeached/) from office, describing his conduct as “profoundly immoral.” But other evangelical leaders [quickly rallied behind Trump](https://time.com/5754579/conservative-evangelical-leaders-letter-christianity-today/) in response. “Essentially what’s going on here is it’s pandering to social conservatives,” Ravitch says. “That’s really what this is about.” The school prayer guidance is one of a few actions the Trump Administration is rolling out Thursday to promote religious freedom. “The administration is committed to using every tool at its disposal to protect the rights of faith-based organizations to operate without unlawful government impediment,” Grogan said. “Taken together, these actions represent the President’s commitment to protecting free exercise for individual believers and for religious organizations.” ## A lawsuit over ‘school-sponsored prayer’ In his remarks at the Miami rally, Trump criticized a [lawsuit](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-sues-stop-official-prayers-promotion-religion-tennessee-school-district) brought by atheist students and their families, who say the Smith County School System in Carthage, Tenn., has for years “routinely promoted and inculcated Christian religious beliefs by sponsoring religious activities and conveying religious messages to students.” The [suit filed in November](https://www.aclu.org/legal-document/butler-v-smith-county-complaint) alleges that school staff often have incorporated official prayer into school assemblies, graduation ceremonies and athletic events, including pep rallies. Christian prayers are delivered over the loudspeaker before home football games, and athletic coaches participate in Christian prayers with students before games and practices. According to the lawsuit, Bible verses and other religious messages have been posted in school hallways, classrooms, a school cafeteria, and a school bathroom, and school leaders allowed the Gideons International, a Christian association, to distribute Bibles during class. “All of these activities send a clear message to minority-faith and non-religious students that they are second-class members of the school community while their Christian peers are favored by school officials,” the suit says. It describes the plaintiffs, who include the father of two children and the mother and father of two other children, as feeling “coerced, both directly and indirectly, to participate in religious activities and expression that does not comport with their personal beliefs.” “They feel like outsiders within their own school community,” the complaint says. In a legal filing responding to the complaint, Smith County school officials denied many of the allegations, arguing that prayer by coaches before or after sporting events, over the loudspeaker at football games, or led by students at school events were not examples of “official” school prayer. The response described another alleged example of school-sponsored prayer as a “moment of silence.” Smith County school officials named in the lawsuit and their attorneys did not respond to a request for comment. In his remarks at the rally, Trump voiced support for the school district. “I love Tennessee for allowing prayer in schools and in football games, but we will not allow faithful Americans to be bullied by the hard left,” he said. “We’re not going to allow it, and we get involved with many of these cases.” Advocates for the students involved in the suit say the complaint isn’t about preventing other students from exercising religion. “Students already have broad rights to engage in religious exercise and expression in a public school, and that’s not what the case in Tennessee is about. This is about school officials imposing official prayer and religious messages on the student body, and that is not allowed,” says Heather Weaver, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief who is representing the families in the Tennessee case. “What I hope for our clients is that they will be able to attend their public school and participate in their public school community without being made to feel like second-class citizens or lesser people, simply because they don’t share the faith of their peers or the faith of school officials.” The lawsuit is similar to others brought by the ACLU in the past. In 2017, the organization [sued a school district in Louisiana](https://www.laaclu.org/en/cases/cole-v-webster-parish-school-board), accusing the district of promoting religion by broadcasting Christian prayers each morning over the public address system and incorporating official prayer into athletic events, pep rallies and assemblies. In a 2018 consent decree, a federal judge ordered the district to end school-sponsored prayer. Weaver says the ACLU plans to closely monitor any school prayer guidance issued by the Trump Administration. “If \[Trump\] does take some kind of action to try to inject school-sponsored prayer into public schools, we’re going to oppose it vigorously,” she says. ## How the courts have ruled Bruce Grelle — director of the Religion and Public Education Project at California State University, Chico — says the Supreme Court and lower courts have been clear: “Schools themselves, administrators, teachers, are supposed to be neutral when it comes to religion. They’re not to be promoting it. They’re not to be sponsoring or organizing religious activities or practices for students to participate in,” he says. “But students, themselves, are free to initiate and participate in various kinds of religious activities.” The landmark 1962 Supreme Court ruling in Engel v. Vitale found that school-sponsored prayer, even if it’s nondenominational, violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it represents government interference with religion. In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that states and school boards can’t require the reading of Bible passages or prayers in schools. In 2000, the Court [ruled](https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-62) in _Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe_ that prayer over the public address system at school football games — even if it is student-led and student-initiated — was a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. But the role of religion in public schools remains a polarizing issue, and students’ encounters with it vary. Nearly 40% of public school teens say they see other students praying before school sporting events, according to [a 2019 Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/03/for-a-lot-of-american-teens-religion-is-a-regular-part-of-the-public-school-day/). And 8% of public school teens say a teacher has led their class in prayer, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling against the practice. Last year, lawmakers in several states debated bills that would require the national motto, “In God We Trust,” to be displayed prominently in schools. Supporters have described the bills as patriotic, while critics — including the ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation — have argued they pressure students into certain religious beliefs. Trump has waded into the issue in the past. Last January, he [tweeted](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089876055224184833) support for controversial bills in several states to allow elective Bible literacy classes in public schools. It’s not unconstitutional for students to learn about the historical significance of the Bible in public schools, but critics argued that such legislation was an effort to promote Christianity. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1089876055224184833) In an [October speech](https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics) at Notre Dame Law School, Barr described public schools as “ground zero” for “attacks on religion,” warning that some public schools “are becoming secularized” and “inhospitable to families with traditional religious values.” A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for the Education Department referred all inquiries to the White House. Grelle says he expects public schools to remain a battle ground in the debate over the role of religion. “There’s so much misunderstanding about what can and cannot be done or what should and should not be done according to legal principles in public schools,” he says. “That ignorance allows politicians at local as well as national levels to whip up their constituencies.” ## Transcript What's your relationship like with Mr Trump? Faster. [ LAUGH ] Good. Mr Trump said, you know you're speaking at the RNC right? We said, what are you serious? He said I want you to do what you always do. Just do what you do. And so here we go, speaking time, I see. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Good morning. Good morning, Daniel, how are you? Good morning. [ LAUGH ] Good morning, Miss Maggie. Absolutely, yes, people are shocked That I don't come from this major, major platform of a location of New York City, or California, but a small town right here in Easley, South Carolina. But that's the heartbeat of this country, and for me, it all goes back to Mr Trump. How much time? Two minutes, then we come back for one song. [ MUSIC ] [ APPLAUSE ] [ MUSIC ] So if you need a miracle in your life I want you to write that miracle down on your envelope. We fully believe in writing all over our envelopes. Once you have your offering ready I want you to raise it up as high as you can get it. Let's get on chairs and stuff they want is close to the Lord as possible Possible, and throw it in there. He is a billionaire from New York City, he could have taken anybody under his wing. There is no black person, there is no white person, there is no yellow person, there is no red person, there is only green people. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Greed is money. It is almost spiritual in a sense, it is bigger than just money right? I meant it is really about Donald Trump has showed over and over and over again how he's willing to give. People, the least likely people in opportunity to prove themselves. For someone like Donald Trump to say hey, your heart is right, your spirit is right. Come follow me. That speaks volumes. When God wants to bless you, he brings a person. He reveals a person. He blesses you with the person in your life. But when he wants to protect you. I teach this all the time, that I don't want a leader who just presents to me their resume because the resume has all your good stuff on there. I want a leader who will lead me who has a record. You know, they have a jail record. They have a record that says I've messed up, I've messed up, I've messed up. But I overcame, overcame, overcame. Is that what Mr. Trump has done? Without question. Without question he exudes the message of grace. That he was once blind, but now he sees. He was once pro- choice but now he is pro- life, after receiving the information. He's been married three times but he's proven to be a powerfully effective father. He's willing to admit his mistakes, but celebrate his children, and when I see him I see the message of grace. I remember when we were in Atlanta and there's a press release there and so many of us black pastors were with him, and I was right beside him. I said lord this may be the very last time I This close to Donald Trump, so whatever financial anointed on his life [ LAUGH ] let him fall upon my life, so I can teach other people. I don't know why me, he chose me. I don't know why out of all of the 50, 60- some odd leaders that were there, why am I the one that was being asked to come on television. Alright, let's go. Let's go. Let's go eat. Here are the keys. Thank you. We go out to eat every Sunday. I'm going to show you who my children are. Well first this is my mother, Joeda. This is my mother. The fabulous woman that burst the fabulous me, and then you have my youngest baby Samara, Samara- Interracial marriage as an interracial family is just so vital. This is my youngest and they are ten. The key to future of our country- Mark is 14. In our family, our children are getting an even greater education On how not to see color. And then where's Diamond? Diamond is next, she's 18. [ LAUGH ] With her fabulous pink hair and fabulous pink lipstick. And then our oldest is Jordan, and she will be 20 in a few days. I know I'm not old enough to have a 20 year old. Funeral but I do. I want to bring you to this stop here and I don't know if they still have the sign up front but we didn't want to really come here because they have the waiting rebel flag but then we saw the Trump sign And so maybe this would be good so we walked in and you can immediately tell that they had their eyes on us, that they were suspicious of us. We were together. And they didn't like that at all. We found something that we wanted and they basically said, that's not for sale. Yeah, that's not for sale When it was clearly for sale. And I didn't tell them I was a [ UNKNOWN ] for Trump, I didn't tell them I traveled on the campaign. I didn't say any of that, I simply said that's the reason right now why so many blacks and whites, cuz there are whites who won't support Mr. Trump because they think he's racist. The majority of the world thinks that the Trump supporter is this, I'm not a champion of Black people. That's why I don't compare myself to Dr. King. He was a champion of the African American communities. It frustrates me basically that the Black community, who, one of the minority groups that suffer the most, are consistently voting For the same people that positioned them to be there. Donald Trump really is the best solution for all minorities that is at the bottom of the tow pole. You know, they're disappointed with the president's comments of, you know, Black Lives Matter and Police Lives Matter. There wouldn't be a hash tag police lives matter if there wasn't a hash tag black lives matter. It seems like black lives only matter when a black life is killed by a white cop. Well, we are Heading to the airport. Heading to catch a flight to New York city. To appear tonight on Megyn Kelly to discuss what's taking place in this country in this place right now. Hopefully we won't be in a combative scenario, but knowing [ LAUGH ] They want to get us to communicate and argue. They want good TV. Go ahead, Pastor Mark Burns, in the back row. Pastor Mark Burns. People want to assassinate an officer. That is why they're out there. [ CROSSTALK ] Down the line, go ahead, Pastor Mark Burns, in the grey sir. Fear factor. It's just that they're scared. They're afraid because in today's society, cops are walking on eggshells because they don't want to show up on the next cell phone video and be automatically condemned before facts are even proven. [ CROSSTALK ] I truly feel appointed for such a time as this. I feel just like Ester did when Mordecai came to her and said you need to have the ear to the king. You have to help protect our people. So, she can position herself to be the voice piece of God, and be the influencing of the king's ear. What kinds of things are you speaking into the king's ear? Just be kind, be loving. [ MUSIC ] And your hope for November? [ LAUGH ] My hope for November, Donald Trump is, we're going to the White House. And I'm going to give the inaugural prayer, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm claiming it all, you know we're going all the way. 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