ABSTRACT
The state amended an earlier law providing for a minute of silence at the beginning of the school day by specifying that this time could be used for silent meditation or prayer. The bill's primary sponsor had argued that the reason he supported the bill was to get prayer back into public schools, and Alabama had passed a series of laws with that apparent aim. The Supreme Court has ruled that forcing or encouraging students to participate in prayers while attending public schools violates the Constitution. Whether verbal prayer in public schools should be allowed and in what settings it may be permitted have been controversial political and social issues in the United States that have resulted in a great deal of litigation testing the limits of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Since Wallace, the Supreme Court has ruled that prayer is unconstitutional at school functions even outside of regular classroom instruction time.
