Pregame Prayers Under Attack at High Schools, Colleges

Football teams and fans in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee have responded in a variety of ways to warnings from a Madison, Wis.-based national state-church watchdog group targeting pregame prayers. For months, the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been sending letters to school superintendents and college chancellors objecting to the practice of opening football games and other school or university functions with a prayer.

In one such letter sent to 151 public school districts in Mississippi, FFRF co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker reminded superintendents that "it is illegal for a public school to organize, sponsor or lead prayers at public high school events. The Supreme Court has continually struck down formal teacher or school-led prayer in public schools. … Prayers imposed by schools over loudspeakers at athletic events or other school-sponsored events bear the imprint of the state." The letter also cited several Supreme Court cases to back up FFRF's assertion, including Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), in which the nation's highest court ruled that student-initiated prayer at football games was unconstitutional.

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