Beginning in the 1960s, the court handed religious conservatives a series of major defeats. It began with
the landmark 1962 ruling, Engel v. Vitale, that school-sponsored prayer – even nonsectarian prayer – violated the Establishment Clause. Since then, the Supreme Court has pushed forward, from banning organized Bible reading for religious and moral instruction in 1963 to prohibiting school-sponsored prayers at high school football games in 2000. (The new survey finds that 8% of teens in public school have ever seen a teacher lead the class in prayer, and the same share have ever had a teacher read to the class from the Bible as an example of literature.)
In these and other decisions, the court has repeatedly stressed that the Constitution prohibits public schools from indoctrinating children in religion.