Religion in Michigan’s public school systems
By Mark H. Stowers
The debate over maintaining a secular environment in public schools as opposed to allowing the teaching of religious doctrine has taken on a life of its own over the years, with the courts often having the final say on the issue. Yet even today there are efforts to bring religious education – specifically teaching of Christianity through study of the Bible – into the public schools of Michigan, including in Oakland County.
The United States Constitution, in the First Amendment, states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Legal minds have further expounded on the statement to explain, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution establishes the principle of separation of church and state that includes two key clauses. The first is the Establishment Clause. This clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or disproportionately favoring one religion over another. Essentially, the government cannot promote or endorse any specific religious beliefs or practices. The second clause is the Free Exercise Clause. This clause protects individuals' rights to practice their religion freely, as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others or violates public order.
Together, these clauses ensures the government remains neutral in matters of religion, allowing for religious freedom while preventing any state-sponsored religious activities in a variety of situations. This separation is a foundational aspect of American democracy and has been upheld through numerous court cases and legal interpretations over the years. One, Engel v. Vitale, is the 1962 Supreme Court ruling on state-sponsored classroom prayer. In this landmark case, the court addressed the constitutionality of a New York State law that encouraged public schools to recite a short, voluntary prayer at the start of each school day. The prayer, known as the “Regent’s Prayer,” was written with the intention of being voluntary and non-denominational. A group of parents, led by Steven Engel, challenged and argued the prayer violated the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the voluntary, nondenominational prayer was state-sponsored and was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. Justice Hugo Black, writing for the majority, emphasized that the government should not be involved in the practice of religion.
The impact of the case’s ruling set a precedent for interpreting the Establishment Clause, reinforcing the principle that as a government entity, public schools cannot sponsor religious activities or even promote religious practices. The case continues to reverberate with lasting implications for how religion is addressed in public schools. This case has been the backbone of the argument regarding the role of religion in public schools and the importance of maintaining a secular environment.
Today there are more than 10,000 established and recognized religions in the world. One of the largest religious groups in the world is Christianity, with an estimated 2.3 to 2.6 billion followers in 2020. The other largest religions include Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam makes up nearly 25 percent of the world's population. Hinduism encompasses 15 percent of the world’s population while Buddhism has almost seven percent. Irreligion – defined as the absence or rejection of religious beliefs or practices – includes almost 16 percent of the world's population. With 10,000 different religions, any one of them has the right to create a religious educational course within certain legal parameters.
In Michigan, public schools are allowed to teach about religion as part of a broader educational framework, provided they maintain a neutral and objective stance. This means that classes can cover the historical, cultural and social aspects of various religions, including their beliefs and practices, but they cannot promote or endorse any specific religion.
To ensure compliance with constitutional guidelines, religious classes may only focus on understanding religion's role in history, literature and society but cannot teach religious doctrine. This approach helps foster respect and awareness among students about different beliefs while adhering to the principle of separation of church and state. These types of classes have often been folded into history or social studies curriculums.
Professor Mark Navin, chair of the Department of Philosophy at Oakland University and clinical ethicist at Corewell East William Beaumont Royal Oak, asked a basic question.
“I'm a philosopher, let’s start with the most basic ideas. One question is ‘what's religion?’ The Supreme Court of the United States – but even state Supreme Courts – have actually been very reluctant to even define that term because notably defining it would put them in the business of establishment. It would sort of say these are the things we recognize as religions and these things we don't know. There are exceptions to that, but I think that what we're saying in big parts of the law, and in particular, when it comes to religious exemptions and religious liberty, we recognize in this country wide scope for things that can count as religion and religious. And the upshot for education just is that if you think of religion as a sort of organized system of moral beliefs that bind a community together, that give it some sense of purpose, or narrative for themselves, schools can't help the future religion. The question is just going to be which one or which kind.”
He explained that religious history is part of every country’s story.
“Many people say schools should teach a civic religion. A sort of story about America's origin and patriotism and the sort of virtues of citizenship and membership. And maybe that's a very positive story that I think until recently had a lot of bipartisan consensuses. This is the story of increasing liberty and opportunity. And I think it's plausible on some levels. Many people have called it ‘civic religion.’ And some people argue that's the purpose of school – to raise our children in that religion is to form the basis of our ongoing stability in our community.”
Finding a common ground is difficult with so many different religions.
“Religion is when you're talking about God and the Bible and that's a story that maybe I'm not convinced by that narrow conception of religion,” Navin continued. “Even if that were true, it's still going to be the case that schools can't help but sometimes teach things that are either in agreement with or contrary to other religious beliefs and commitments. Ideas about the origin of life or the creation or beginning of the universe or ideas about gender or about sexuality or about interpersonal morality or about social justice. These are things religions take stands on. And if the schools are going to take a stand on those things, there's going to be either agreement or conflict with religion. In that way, they're either teaching some part of religion or they're teaching against some part of religion. I don't think schools can avoid this problem. Schools are either in the business of teaching religion or teaching things that either support or conflict with some religions.”
He further explained that even with the constitutional guidelines, it all comes down to who’s responsible.
“Framing the question as one about religion in schools is maybe not helpful. One reason we have to frame it that way is because the Constitution calls out special attention to religious liberty in the First Amendment. And if you want to make a liberty-based argument either about free exercise or establishment, talking about religions is the right way to go, given our constitutional framework. But I think the real questions are about the division of responsibility between parents and society for raising and protecting children and socializing them into both individual identities and their role in the broader sort of civic fabric. And I think that's something that reasonable people disagree about,” Navin said.
With schools “being in the business of teaching facts,” Navin explained those facts are needed to develop as an individual and be able to thrive in “various cooperative activities in the labor force, have friendships that work. But we as human beings have a tendency to only trust people with whom we identify on some level and to not sort of be willing or as willing to trust people who we think have sort of moral beliefs or social identities that are contrary or in conflict with our own. And you might think that in the name of actually better educating children, allowing children or parents to select charter schools or private schools or even homeschooling in which schooling opportunities take place against the background of a set of shared values might actually be a better way to educate. Because I think our big problem right now is distrust in broader institutions and that's a real problem for our schools. Especially if you think that the schools are sort of at war with your religious identities, your moral beliefs, your sort of way you'd like to raise your kid.”
He further explained he believes that much of what is being taught actually has a religious foundation.
“I think there ought to be a lot more religion in the curriculum. I think students ought to be reading the Bible in their literature classes and maybe integrate into social studies as well. I don't think you can read Shakespeare unless you know Bible stories. I think you can't make sense of the Protestant Reformation unless you've got a sense of what's going on in Paul's letters (New Testament of the Christian Bible) about how I want to achieve salvation. If you understand the Protestant Reformation and you can't understand anything about the history of America or the wars in Europe that preceded that, I think we ought to be teaching a lot more religion. Not to necessarily trying to indoctrinate children to particular religious beliefs, but we ought to be talking about it a lot more. How you could be studying a culture or history without thinking about the religion? And not just studying the religion but taking it very seriously and trying to take it seriously from the inside. For example, if you read about the history of the Crusades, and you think about these petty nobles from France or Italy that went off to the Holy Land to fight. It's very hard to explain what their motivations were unless you take their religious beliefs seriously and try and get inside their heads and understand they actually took the prospect of hell really seriously and they took very seriously the prospect of the papal indulgence and the forgiveness associated with their participation in the crusades. If you don't take seriously that someone could believe such a thing and I’m worried that many teachers and young people today don't take seriously these kinds of motivations, you can't understand some of the fundamental forces that drove human history. It goes back to actual facts. You need to look at the whole story and able in order to understand and tell the whole story.”
In considering the political spectrum, Navin noted that neither side is right and neither side is wrong.
“I worry that increasingly leftists think of religion as something cute or sweet or is anachronistic but not something we'll have to take seriously as a source of motivation and purpose for people's lives. And that's a real problem if we're if we're trying to teach children in that way. I think people on the right sometimes advocate for more religion in schools and I think sometimes do mean a kind of indoctrination. The idea of school should be raising kids at least in a kind of Judeo-Christian framework. They actually often understate the real differences between religions. Having Christianity be something taught at school doesn't actually resolve these problems of pluralism and diversity. It's just going to refocus them.”
In looking at the foundation of the United States, Navin explained, “America's not a secular country. I think some people on the left think it is, and what I mean by that is France is explicitly, and has been for nearly 200 years, a secular country with some intermissions there and it has been its policy to drive religion out of public life, there is no religion, but America's not and has never been a secular country. We have had a strong role for recognition of God and respect for religious language and values and displays in our public life since the very beginning. And religion has played a prominent and public role in everything from the abolition of slavery to the civil rights movement. And even abolishing alcohol in the early 20th century. Like every major American social movement until very recently has been led by religious figures. Everything from 'In God We Trust' to 'Under God' and the 'Pledge of Allegiance' shows and prayers on the floor of the Congress show that we are not attempting to somehow drive religion out of public life. I worry that some people on the left think we ought to be more like France and have an intolerance for religion in public and in our politics. And as much as they're committed to that, I think they're committed to something un-American. I say that as a member of their tribe, as someone who is of the left. It's like I preach to my kids. You need to listen to other folks. You need to try to find ways to get along and figure it out. Just because one side thinks they're right, if they incorporate everything, then a lot of people aren't going to be represented in that type of government. I understand why in the broken situation people choose private schools and choose homeschooling, but boy, I would love an America where all sorts of kids were going to school together and learning to see each other as fellow citizens.”
April Empario, assistant superintendent of Student Learning & Inclusion for Birmingham Public Schools, explained how the potentially controversial subject is handled:
“In Birmingham Public Schools, religion is not taught as a standalone subject. However, as part of the Michigan state social studies standards, we educate students about world religions in a historical and cultural context. For example, the 7th grade curriculum includes a standard where students explore ancient civilizations and their belief systems, including the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, India and China, to understand global history and cultures better. This approach is educational, not devotional, and aligns with state guidelines.”
It was pointed out that students from Berkshire and Derby middle schools did previously participate voluntarily in a Religious Diversity Journeys program prior to the pandemic. This was discontinued due to COVID-19 restrictions. However, the district is looking to bring that option back very soon. The program is nine-weeks long and students are taught ancient civilizations and as part of that unit, students learn different religions and other state standards, but religion is not the primary focus, according to Cortez Strickland, marketing & communications manager for Birmingham Public Schools.
The detroitinterfaithcouncil.com website explains, “Religious Diversity Journeys allows students to experience visits to five different houses of worship and one cultural journey for first-person learning about the Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jewish, and Sikh faith traditions.” It further states, “The Religious Diversity program aligns with the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) Grade Level Content Expectations for the Study of World Religions and the National Council for the Social Studies: College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework.”
When the MDE was emailed and asked questions about religion in public schools, Bob Wheaton, director, Office of Public and Governmental Affairs responded, “Michigan public schools are required to follow all applicable federal and state laws.” He also provided several websites with information, including a memorandum from Delsa D. Chapman, Ed.D., deputy superintendent, Division of Assessment, School Improvement and Systems Support, dated August 29, 2024, explaining, “The U.S. Department of Education requires that intermediate school districts and local education agencies, both traditional public school districts and public school academies, as a condition of receiving funds under any portion of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 as amended, annually certify to the state education agency that it has no policy that prevents, or otherwise denies participation in, constitutionally protected prayer in public schools. A district’s failure to submit the required certification may result in the district’s loss of funding under ESEA.”
Michigan law allows for a moment of silence at the beginning of the school day. This moment can be used for personal reflection, prayer or meditation, but it must be voluntary and cannot be structured to promote any specific religious practice.
The federal government protects school prayer in “Section 8524(a) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act and codified at 20 U.S.C. § 7904(a), which requires the Secretary of Education to issue guidance to state educational agencies, local educational agencies and the public on constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary and secondary schools. In addition, it requires that, as a condition of receiving ESEA funds, local educational agencies must annually certify in writing to its Secretary of Education that it has no policy that prevents, or otherwise denies participation in, constitutionally protected prayer in public elementary and secondary schools.”
At the same time, students have the right to express their religious beliefs, such as through student-led prayer or religious clubs, as long as it does not disrupt the school environment. The Equal Access Act mandates that schools must provide equal access for student-led groups, including those with a religious focus. Students can express their religious beliefs while teachers and school officials must maintain a neutral stance and avoid promoting or denigrating any religious views.
Karen Huyghe, director of communications for Bloomfield Hills Schools, noted that as a public school district they “respect the individual religious beliefs of students and staff.”
There is a movement afoot around the country to bring outside religious education to public and charter school students during “non-core” subjects – such as band, gym, recess and art, rather than math, reading, history or social studies, in an effort to provide faith-based knowledge to students without crossing the hypothetical line with the First Amendment. One such institution, LifeWise Academy, is attempting to gain footholds in Michigan and Oakland County.
LifeWise Academy was founded in 2018 as a division of Stand For Truth, an event-based non-profit ministry with a mission to reach public school students. The organization is headed by former Ohio State University football player Joel Penton. The group’s website explains their goal and mission, “The creation of LifeWise was inspired by a released time program in Van Wert, Ohio, which boasts a 95 percent participation rate among public elementary school students. Stand For Truth and the Van Wert released time program teamed up to create LifeWise Academy, launching the first two LifeWise programs in the fall of 2019. LifeWise Academy now serves more than 150 school districts nationwide.”
Penton offered a deeper background of the organization and what they do across the country in 31 states. He said there has been interest in Michigan but no program has been officially started.
“The Supreme Court had ruled that public school students could be released from public school during school hours to receive religious instruction. It just had to be off of school property, privately-funded and parent-permitted,” Penton said. “A program like this had been started in my hometown (Penton wasn’t living there at the time) and 95 percent of the whole school was involved in this thing. And it was having a big impact. I was doing a lot of speaking in schools. The leaders thought I might be able to help them answer the question, ‘Why doesn't every community have a program like this?’ It’s beneficial and it's legal.”
After conducting his own research, Penton said he discovered that starting a larger scale program was nearly impossible to do.
“You’re basically starting a private school,” he said. “You have to find the facility and curriculum and transportation. I said, ‘I think what you need to do is you need to put it all in a box and make it repeatable, make it scalable.’”
Penton was encouraged to do just that and set out to start a “plug and play” program that any community could implement. LifeWise launched its first two programs in 2019 and set a goal of 25 schools to serve by 2025.
“We thought that was really ambitious, 25 by 25. Here we are in 2024, and we're confirmed to serve over 600 schools across 31 states. In Michigan in particular, we are confirmed to serve six schools but none of them are yet launched.”
One of those schools, Brandon Schools, a public school district in northern Oakland County, was contacted, but superintendent Carly Stone’s executive assistant, Alexis Wheat, noted she was not allowed to discuss LifeWise Academy.
Penton explained that first, each community has to have 50 signatures from community members in order to start the process of having LifeWise Academy begin the process.
“The other schools are still identifying their local teams and getting them trained. And even if you have questions, I don't even know if we'd have someone to answer your questions. They probably wouldn't know anything about it because there's no program underway,” Penton said.
The 50 signatures “demonstrates to us there's people there that really want to do this. We just provide the resources and tools and things as local people. One person's not going to pull this off. If you want to do it, go find 49 friends, and then we form a steering committee,” Penton explained. “And that school district, they've just had four signatures. They've got 46 to go but I will tell you, we have received at least one signature from 237 Michigan school districts and we've received over 2,000 signatures in total throughout the state. More than a dozen have already eclipsed that 50-signature mark. You’ve got communities that are interested, that are beginning to move through that process, and then a small handful are kind of reaching that point of launching live classes.”
Bringing LifeWise Academy in for religious education begins with parents taking the initiative.
“Often when we go to a school, they're unfamiliar with the concept of it altogether,” he said. “They don't know there's a state law about it. Sometimes they even have policies on their books that maybe were adopted years before and these policy manuals are huge. It's not like everybody's staying up late reading them at night. That’s part of the process; there’s some education to do. But 90 percent of the time, at the end of that conversation, we're able to move forward and launch a program.”
The basics of LifeWise Academy is teaching the Bible to first through fifth grade students.
“It really is that simple. The shortest version of what we do is Bible education for public school students during school hours. The curriculum we use, we have a licensing agreement with the Gospel Project. We teach students through the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation, usually over the course of five years. Our typical program will be grades one through five. When they start in first grade, they're reading about creation and Genesis and by the time they finish fifth grade, they've been through the book of Revelation,” Penton said.
He explained there is a three-fold philosophy.
“We keep it legal, meaning we know the rules. We make sure all the federal, state and local policies that we abide by and we make sure the school does. We want to make sure we keep it legal. Number two, we keep it simple. It is a Christian program. It is a religious program. But we're not delving into the finer details of religious doctrine with these elementary school kids. We're teaching them the main themes of scripture and with the gospel at the center. We are talking about Jesus, and we're talking about God's love. We keep it practical, meaning every lesson is tied to a character trait. How does God's love transform us? And one week, it might be the word of the week. It might be honesty or it might be responsibility or it might be sacrifice. And we kind of do that through the whole of Scripture. Kids get it once a week.”
He noted that in surveying over 700 school administrators, “90 percent said they saw it as beneficial to their school and students.”
In working and teaching from a Christian viewpoint, Penton explained, “I would say that we unashamedly are sharing the love of God with students. And if someone's unfamiliar with the Bible message, then I would say all the more we want to share the love of God. We wouldn't ever want to say we only want to teach the Bible to those who already are familiar with it. We believe part of Christianity is that we want to spread the message. I don't think we would shy away from that, even if some people would want to paint that in some sort of negative light. We don't see it that way.”
LifeWise Academy’s program has teachers who go through a certification process and explained the content of the program.
“It's a Christian program and if children come, they're going to hear a Christian lesson,” Penton noted. “We recognize that other religions can do the same thing. There could be a Muslim release time program; a Jewish one. In fact, there are these programs in New York, in particular, there's quite a few Jewish release time programs. All religions are able to do this. It's one of the beautiful things about it is that it's entirely optional and open. We emphasize the optional nature. We recognize not every family is going to want to do it. It's entirely optional. The families that want to participate and find the value can, and those that aren't interested don't have to.”
He noted there are other big things to keep in mind with any type of public school religious classes.
“Keep it legal and constitutional, off school property, privately funded and parent permitted,” he said. “A question often comes up is ‘what about the separation of church and state?’ And we say, ‘that's the point.’ That's why the Supreme Court ruled the way they did because of those three things. It's separate from state property, it's separate from state funding and it's separate from state compulsion. And that matter genuinely is settled by the highest court.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), based in Wisconsin, was founded in the late 1960s, according to Sammi Lawrence, staff attorney. The FFRF has two dual missions – to serve as an umbrella and voice for atheists and agnostics and free thinkers and to educate the public about what it means to be a free thinker and to be non-religious. The second purpose is to help protect the wall of separation between state and church.
“The foundation has helped with a lot of different lawsuits since it started in the '70s, and our legal department receives many complaints each year from people who think they've experienced a constitutional violation related to the separation of state and church,” Lawrence said. “And for a lot of those complaints, we address them without going to court by just trying to write essentially cease and desist letters to whatever government organization is involved, like a school district, saying, ‘hey, we heard that this happened.’”
She noted the organization receives quite a few complaints regarding teachers in public schools leading students in prayer or trying to promote religion in a devotional way. She contacts those schools and lets them know of the report from a parent and works to get is resolved with assurances it won’t happen again.
“But we do also file lawsuits on behalf of clients and sometimes the foundation itself has been a plaintiff in lawsuits. We also often work with coalitions to bring lawsuits. It's really a pretty wide variety. We do not have any lawsuits in Michigan right now. I want to say that we have had lawsuits in Michigan in the past prior to my working here. We've been involved in many lawsuits in some way or another over the past 40-plus years,” she said. “We do receive complaints from people in Michigan every year. We receive complaints from all 50 states every year.”
Lawrence focuses on the protections of the First Amendment.
“We're against indoctrination because that's what's illegal under the First Amendment. Of course, students can learn about religion in a fact-based, secular manner in schools, including in public schools. Plenty of social studies classes include completely acceptable, factual discussions about religions that exist in the world, etc. We're against people actually trying to indoctrinate students in the public schools.”
But the definition and practice of indoctrination varies from state to state.
“It can also vary depending on whether you are talking about the federal constitution or a state constitution. But generally, we would say that any time the school, through an official policy or an individual teacher, is basically trying to promote or coerce or convince people to believe in a certain religion or pray or participate in any religious activity, that is crossing the line,” Lawrence said.
The FFRF currently has cases such as the Ten Commandments lawsuit in Louisiana where the governor proposed posting the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms.
“We and several other groups are in a coalition effort to bring that lawsuit, and we filed that a few months ago and that's still ongoing but basically, we and our clients are opposing a Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be posted in all public school classrooms,” she said.
She explained that even if other religions such as Buddhism or Judaism tenets were posted, the same premise for a lawsuit would exist.
“If they had to post all of them in every classroom or if the law was somehow different and said that a whole bunch of different religions' scriptures have to be posted in every public classroom, I think we would still sue, because then that would still be the government very clearly promoting the idea that you have to be religious,” Lawrence said. “The government is, under the Constitution, supposed to essentially be neutral. It shouldn't be telling people that they should be religious or not religious, or that they should believe in any particular religion. We believe that the government should really just stay out of religion because that's a private matter that people should just be deciding completely for themselves.”
The FFRF stance on the Pledge of Allegiance and In God We Trust on U.S. currency follows what the courts have already decided.
“Unfortunately, the courts have basically already decided that those things are fine. We still would prefer that they not exist. 'In God We Trust' wasn't added to the Pledge of Allegiance until the 1950s as a response to communism and McCarthyism. The national motto used to be, E Pluribus Unum. If we could change it back, we would, but the courts have decided that those mentions of God in those specific contexts are what the federal courts call 'ceremonial deism,' which is this kind of very vague idea that if you just sort of vaguely reference a God in the name of God, then it's not God. In sort of this ceremonial way, then it's fine, which we disagree with, but it's what the law is, so we have to respect that. Obviously, religion is a huge part of society and not just our society, many societies and cultures. So of course, school curriculums are going to acknowledge that religion exists and teach about it in a factual way. That's fine. That's a lot different than a Sunday school class,” Lawrence said.
She noted the FFRF does oppose school-sponsored prayer.
“We don't think that public schools should be scheduling and hosting prayers and encouraging people to pray. If students as individuals feel the desire to pray, of course, they can do that. Students generally have free speech rights but the school itself and teachers shouldn't be trying to get students to pray and in holding prayers as part of official activities. If it's covering a religion in a secular and scholarly manner, that would theoretically be fine. Some schools will have classes about the literary influence of the Bible, for example, and that's fine as long as it's not taught in a way that's trying to convince students that the religion is true or right or the one that they should believe in or that they should be worshiping any particular God, etc. If it's just being taught about in a neutral, factual way like any other topic typically in school then, yes, in theory, that should be fine.”
The FFRF works to strictly follow the First Amendment to the Constitution and has had cases where they represent someone representing a religion.
“My understanding of the Establishment Clause is that it codifies the idea of a separation between state and church. The state and the church should be separate. Government should not be involving itself in religion, the government should ideally, be neutral towards religion as much as possible, not preferring it, promoting it, favoring it in any way. Some people think that we are anti-religion or that we hate religion. And even though we do educate people about atheism and being non-religious, we do have religious members and we do represent religious clients sometimes. We get complaints from parents who tell us, ‘I'm Catholic, I'm Christian, I'm ‘insert other religion here.’ And my problem isn't with religion, it's with the fact that my student's public school teacher is trying to tell my kid what religion to believe in. And that's not their job, that's my job. as a parent.’
“The bottom line is that the government doesn't have any business trying to tell people what to believe or not to believe, what religion to practice or not practice, which religion is the best or which religion isn't the best. It should just stay out of it.”