In a recent blog post, I wrote, “The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause only prevents the federal government from establishing a state religion and from prohibiting a person from practicing their religion. By my reading, the First Amendment does not preclude prayer in public schools.”
Commenter joshua4234 disagreed:

I don’t think you read the First Amendment right. It doesn’t say, “Congress shall make no law establishing a state religion,” it says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Let’s break this down, what is “an establishment?” You ever talked about a business by saying “this establishment?” Basically it’s an institution, so an institution of religion, aka church. Now what does “respecting” mean? Does it just mean establishing as a state religion? Or perhaps treating it favorably compared to a different religious thought? This is why I take it to mean it shouldn’t give one religion preferential treatment to another, and thus by extension not prefer any religion or not having one. Thus, public teachers, being an extension of the state, shouldn’t lead prayer.

To an extent, this is merely an academic discussion: the Supreme Court holds that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates this clause to the states, and also holds that teachers in public schools cannot lead students in prayer in class.

However, that doesn’t mean that the Court cannot be wrong. All one must do is look at the Dred Scott case. So the question is relevant.

Joshua4234’s reasoning, however, is difficult to follow. One can reach the same conclusion that he reaches without using these convoluted (and, frankly, false) definitions of “establishment” and “respecting.”

The view I take is the one that the country took until the Supreme Court interpreted the Incorporation Doctrine into the Bill of Rights.

The relevant First Amendment clause reads thus: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

Therefore, Congress could not establish a State religion, and neither could they pass laws which prohibit people from practicing their religion.

The words “respecting” and “establishment” do not change this reading of the clause. To establish a religion means exactly that ”” instituting a State religion with a State church, a la Great Britain. That the Constitution outlaws Congress from making a law respecting such a church just means that they cannot pass a law that does this.

On top of this, the clause only applied to the national government (Congress shall make no law…). States could and in fact did have state churches, up until the 1830s.

With the advent of the Fourteenth Amendment, this changed a bit ”” there have been varying views on how this amendment should be interpreted, but pretty much everyone believes at least part of the Bill of Rights are to be incorporated to the states.

Even still, I doubt that the Framers envisioned that the same Supreme Court that prays before it begins its business could outlaw the same action in public schools.