President Donald Trump delivers a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on January 21, 2026. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education reaffirmed the right to prayer in public schools in guidance issued Thursday.
Under the Instructions According to state and local education officials, students, teachers and school officials “have the right to pray at school as an expression of individual faith, as long as they do not do so on behalf of the school.” Department said.
President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to protect religious freedom in public schools and beyond, and a growing number of Republican state legislators have attempted to integrate Christianity into public education.
Trump announced the guidelines during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, calling the move a “big deal.”
The president predicted Democrats would sue over the guidelines but said he was confident his administration would win any legal challenge.
The guidelines also clarify that “public schools may not encourage prayer, nor force or pressure students to pray.”
In 1962 the US Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the Constitution.
The up-to-date guidelines call on school authorities to “permit the persons who make up a public school community to act and speak in accordance with their beliefs, provided that they do not interfere with the rights of others, that the school itself does not, as an institution, engage in religious acts or expression, and that the school does not favor secular over religious views or one religious view over another.”
The guidelines draw on a handful of recent Supreme Court rulings on religious expression and freedom in public schools, such as: B. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which held that the Actions of a Washington State high school football coach who prayed at the 50-yard line after games were constitutionally protected.
According to the ministry, the Ministry of Education is required by law to periodically issue instructions on prayer in schools.
Trump had gave a preview of Thursday’s guidance during his September 2025 speech at a Religious Freedom Commission hearing.
The President founded this commission in May 2025 in an effort to “protect and promote America’s founding principle of religious freedom.”
Education Minister Linda McMahon said in a statement alongside the announcement that the government is “proud to stand with students, parents and teachers who want to exercise their First Amendment rights in schools across our great country.”
“Our Constitution protects the free exercise of religion as one of the guiding principles of our republic, and we will vigorously protect this right in America’s public schools,” she said.
