Do students have a constitutional right to express their faith and religious ideas in a public school?
Yes. The First Amendment protects the private religious speech of students on and off the school campus.1 Students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”2 The Supreme Court has stated that a student’s free-speech rights apply “when [they are] in the cafeteria, or on the playing field, or on the campus during the authorized hours. . . .”3 The Supreme Court has warned school officials not to trample the rights of students in public schools: [S]tate-operated schools may not be enclaves for totalitarianism. School officials do not possess absolute authority over their students. Students in school as well as out of school are “persons” under our Constitution. They are possessed of fundamental rights which the State must respect, just as they themselves must respect their obligations to the State. In our system, students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the State chooses to communicate. They may
