Texas Senate passes school prayer bill

On April 2nd, the Texas Senate passed SB 965, a bill that would protect religious expression in the classroom for teachers.

The bill comes in the wake of the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District ruling in 2022 in which a high school football coach led a prayer with his players at midfield after a game had concluded. It raised questions about what activities constitute "the scope of a teacher's school duties" and whether the coach was coercing the students into participating, willingly or not. The Supreme Court ruled that the coach's speech was protected and set a precedent for future school religious speech cases.

The author of SB 965, Sen. Tan Parker (R-Flower Mound), said that his bill aims only to codify that Supreme Court ruling into Texas law and explicitly protect educators who engage in religious speech in the scope of their duties. Democratic senators criticized the bill, stating that Parker misread the Supreme Court ruling because the Court's primary determination was that the coach was not acting in an official capacity since the football game had ended, thus his prayer was private speech. They also pointed out that students in the classroom are less likely to be able to "opt out" of participating in religious speech than players after a football game, and worried that students might fear negative consequences if they do not participate with the teacher. Parker responded similarly to each critique, saying that he only wanted to codify the Supreme Court ruling.

The bill now heads to the House for consideration.

Updates from the Capitol

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