In recent years, the government's priorities have shifted substantially toward foreign policy decisions, in light of international terrorism and the need for increased cooperation to protect the global community from this threat. Although the foreign policy discussion is an important one, it has taken precedence over many of the domestic policy debates which are still unresolved in our nation. One of these disputes is the issue of prayer in schools and its constitutionality. Despite a Supreme Court decision making school-sanctioned prayer in classrooms illegal, many methods of endorsing prayer at school-sponsored events have been undertaken in a circuitous attempt to avoid the rules set up by Engel v. Vitale.1 .

             These attempts to circumvent the Court's ruling regarding school prayer have included prayers at graduation ceremonies and prayers at sporting events, broadcast over a school-financed loudspeaker system and, in many situations, performed by a member of the clergy. These efforts have been rejected by the Court on several occasions, from the banning of religious clergy delivering a benediction at graduate ceremonies to the prohibition of student-led prayer over the school's broadcasting system at a football game.2 These restrictions have plainly demonstrated the Supreme Court's rejection of prayer and religious expressions at any event associated with the public schools and the government.

             The mixture of government, in the form of public schools, and religion, in the form of prayer, is one that is prohibited by the First Amendment ("government shall make no establishment of religion").3 This prohibition bans all "establishments" of religious behaviors by or in a government-funded organization, which includes the public schools. Similar to the case which prohibited a daily prayer in the classrooms based on the coercive nature of such a prayer, the Supreme Court has continued to reject the arguments of proponents that such prayers are not required and therefore should be permitted.