Religion and Public Schools Syllabus

This course is a study of the relationship between religion, law, and public education in the United States. Through this course, students will understand how and why the role of religion in public education has been lived, legislated, and adjudicated in complicated (and sometimes contradictory) ways. This interdisciplinary course draws from studies of education, law, political science, history, and religion. In Winnifred Sullivanʼs Ministry of Presence (2014), she remarks that the Supreme Court now views religion as “being neither particularly threatening nor particularly in need of protection” (17). This class takes as a starting point our contemporary moment in U.S. legal culture: widespread legal deference to religious institutions (through legal exceptions and exemptions) paired with government commitments to religious diversity. Nowhere are these tensions and contradictions more apparent than in the relationship between religion and American public education. The first half of the course examines the historical relationship between religion, law, and public education in the United States. The latter half of the course focuses on (a) learning how these historical precedents have been applied and understood in recent years before (b) attending to case studies in order to develop intellectual tools for approaching diverse and controversial religious issues in public education.

Link to Resource