American schools are governed by a complex lattice work of federal, state, and local laws and regulations, many of them tailored specifically to primary, secondary, or higher education. But all schools are subject to the same First Amendment guarantee that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’. This constitutional guarantee of religious freedom has produced a substantial body of case law. Nearly one-third of the United States Supreme Court's cases on religious freedom – 74 out of its 247 cases reported from 1815 to 20231 – have addressed issues of religion and education. All but six of these cases were decided after 1940, the year the Court first began to apply these guarantees to state and local governments alongside ‘Congress’;2 and for each Supreme Court case, there are scores of lower federal court and sometimes state court cases that add further nuance and amplification. This article summarises, and critically analyses, this ever-evolving jurisprudence.
