The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law

respecting an establishment of religion. This clause not only forbids the government from
establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion
over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or
non-religion over religion.

"Establishment Clause." Legal Information Institute. Cornell University, n.d. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

The question of school-sponsored prayer has proven highly controversial. In the landmark case of Engel v Vitale in 1962,
the Court ruled that New York's practice of beginning school days with a prayer drafted by school officials violated the
Establishment Clause. This is the case, the Court said, whether or not students are given the option of not participating in
the prayer. Writing for the Court, Justice Black said the Establishment Clause was violated when school put "indirect
coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the officially approved religion." Peer pressure being as strong
as it is among the young, many students who might otherwise choose not to participate in prayer will do so for fear
of otherwise being seeing as an oddball.
The following verse was read each day to a Florida kindergarten class. The school board said the purpose of the verse
was to calm kids down and create a sense of appreciation for the world. Is the verse a prayer? How are students likely to
interpret "you"? Could
"you" be Mother Nature or a Giant Slug?
We thank you for the flowers so sweet;
We thank you for the food we eat;
We thank you for the birds that sing;
We thank you for everything.

Linder, Doug. "Prayer in the Public Schools and the Establishment Clause."Prayer in the Public Schools and the
Establishment Clause. Univ of Missouri-Kansas City, 2011. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

In writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black said government-composed prayers were a
reason colonists sought religious freedom in America and that prohibiting state-sponsored
prayers in public schools is not an act of hostility toward religion.
It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this
country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave
that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to
look to for religious guidance, he wrote.
The lone dissent came from Potter Stewart, who argued that the majority had misapplied a great constitutional
principle and could not understand how an official religion is established by letting those who want to say a prayer
say it. On the contrary, I think to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them
the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation. The decision, the first in which the Supreme Court
had ruled unconstitutional public school sponsorship of religion, was unpopular with a broad segment of the
American public.
Brown, Matthew. "50 Years Later: High Court's School Prayer Ruling Still Fuels Religious Liberty
Debate." DeseretNews.com. Deseret Digital Media, 24 June 2012. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.