Is the Government Still Neutral on Religion?
In the ongoing debates about public education, reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and public health care, the question keeps coming up: Why must the government maintain its neutrality on religion?
For humanists, this question is no longer abstract. The question today is whether the United States government is still maintaining its neutrality on religion or simply redefining it.
In February 2026, the United States Department of Education released new federal guidance reminding public schools that students and employees have a constitutional right to pray. The new federal guidance reiterated that schools must take a “stance of neutrality” on religion, which means they can permit prayer but cannot require or prohibit it.
At first glance, this stance is consistent with established constitutional precedent. Students have always had the right to express their personal religious beliefs. While schools cannot sponsor or lead prayer, they cannot prohibit individual religious expression either.
However, the tenor and language of the new federal guidance suggest that something more is at play.
Redefining Neutrality
The new policy explicitly rejects the “legally unsound” metaphor of a “wall of separation” between church and state, a phrase that has long been associated with Supreme Court decisions such as Engel v. Vitale (1962), which invalidated state-sponsored prayer in public schools, and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), which banned mandatory Bible readings in public schools.
By contrast, the new policy focuses on “history and tradition” and cites Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), in which the Supreme Court held that a football coach’s mid-game prayers were a form of constitutionally protected personal expression, not school-sponsored prayer.
Some critics suggest that the new policy’s focus on “history and tradition” represents a subtle but significant shift in the balance. As reported by Baptist News Global, the new policy seems to give teachers more latitude to engage in “visible, personal prayer,” which could have the effect of blurring the line between constitutionally protected personal expression and implicit endorsement. “The new language may muddy the waters,” one expert told Education Week. “It gives educators more wiggle room to push some boundaries.”
The question is not whether people can pray. That is clearly settled by the Constitution. The question is how schools can make certain that overt manifestations of religion, especially by persons in positions of authority, do not produce indirect pressure on students.
Neutrality, as a matter of history, meant that the state should avoid entanglement with religion in order to safeguard the rights of minorities and dissenters. The new approach stresses accommodation rather than separation. Whether this approach enhances or undermines neutrality is in dispute.
The Broader Political Context
The new policy was announced at the 2026 National Prayer Breakfast, where President Donald Trump said that his administration would “rededicate America as one nation under God.” He also announced that there would be a prayer event sponsored by the government, called “Rededicate 250,” on the National Mall.
Symbolism matters. While the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of religion to the individual, government-sponsored religious speech can cloud the constitutional issue. When the government publicly declares its support for explicitly religious ideas, neutrality becomes a murkier issue.
At a Constitutional Crossroads
The revised federal policy reaffirms that schools cannot sponsor or conduct mandatory prayer. However, its abandonment of separationist rhetoric and its broadened understanding of accommodation indicate a fundamental shift in the understanding of neutrality.
This trend is also evident in current Supreme Court precedent, which is increasingly sympathetic to religious accommodation claims and is shrinking the reach of the Establishment Clause (Lupu & Tuttle, 2023).
The problem is not that students are permitted to pray. They should be.
The problem is that the normalization of government-sanctioned religious practice is taking place in a moment when neutrality is less about distance and more about deference.
The United States has always promised religious freedom for all. But freedom must be balanced. It must be ensured that the freedom to pray is balanced with the freedom not to be coerced into praying.
Neutrality was never about hostility to religion. It was about moderation. It was about making sure that public institutions are for all people, not just some.
The question is whether this moderation is being sustained or simply rewritten.
Defending Neutrality in Practice
At this moment of constitutional choice, the American Humanist Association and other groups are essential in determining whether the government’s actions measure up to the promise of the Constitution. The AHA has used lawsuits, amicus briefs, and public outreach to challenge policies that seem to walk the line between accommodation and endorsement, especially in public schools and government-sponsored religious displays. The principle at work in the AHA’s legal efforts is one that is fundamental to this question: neutrality is not a self-enforcing principle. It must be guarded. If the meaning of the separation of church and state is evolving, it is being defined not only by the courts and lawmakers, but also by those who are willing to question whether the government is living up to its promise to protect the liberty of believers and nonbelievers alike.
Sources Consulted:
Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. (2023). Religious freedom and church-state separation. https://bjconline.org
Greenawalt, K. (2008). Religion and the Constitution: Volume 2, Establishment and fairness. Princeton University Press.
Lupu, I. C., & Tuttle, R. W. (2023). The Roberts Court and the changing landscape of religious liberty. Harvard Law & Policy Review, 17(2), 245–278.
Pew Research Center. (2022). Modeling the future of religion in America. https://www.pewresearch.org