Keeping coerced prayer from Missouri schools protects your freedom of religion | Opinion

Public schools exist to educate, not indoctrinate. School-sponsored religious indoctrination is at the heart of an issue that my organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, recently remedied in Hannibal School District 60.

The separation of state and church works to protect religious liberty by ensuring that the government can’t interfere with anyone’s personal private choices about what they do or don’t believe in. Every year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation receives thousands of complaints from the public about possible First Amendment violations related to state-church separation. It’s not uncommon for us to get complaints from parents over their children’s public school coaches directing student-athletes to pray or leading students in prayer or religious worship.

The situation in the Hannibal school district is a prime example. In late 2025, a parent of a student-athlete reached out to us because the coaches of the Hannibal High School girls softball team were directing students to lead prayers at team events, and the assistant coach was also praying with students before and after games. The parent said their child felt “obligated” to participate in the prayers “because a vocal majority of the team is religious” and their child felt that if they didn’t pretend to be religious, they’d receive backlash from their teammates and coaches. The student didn’t want to lose opportunities, and they wanted the head coach to be willing to talk to college coaches on their behalf.

Thankfully, the Hannibal school district’s superintendent took our parent’s concerns seriously. The district investigated and educated its coaches to ensure that its staff does not violate the First Amendment rights of students from now on. That protects everybody’s freedom of religion.

The actions of the coaches were problematic for several reasons.

First and foremost, the First Amendment’s establishment clause prevents the government from promoting or favoring religion over nonreligion or one religion over others. It also prohibits the government — including public schools and their employees — from coercing or encouraging students to believe in religion, or participate in prayer or any other religious activity. By telling students to lead and participate in prayers, and praying with students, the girls softball coaches were violating the First Amendment rights of student-athletes to be free from religious indoctrination in their school’s sports program.

Second, entangling school sports with religion is coercive for any student who doesn’t believe in the same religion as the majority of the team, including students who don’t believe in any religion at all. A nonreligious or minority faith student who refuses to go along with team prayers will do so at the risk of retaliation from teammates and losing favor with their coaches. Here, our complainant’s child felt forced to participate in religious activities they didn’t even believe in to avoid being the odd one out. Putting students in that position is not only unconstitutional — it’s unkind.

School sports should be an opportunity for students to learn, grow and realize their potential. Keeping school-sponsored religion out of public school sports costs nothing, harms no one and welcomes all students — regardless of their belief or nonbelief. Would you approve of school officials leading students in prayer of a religion you don’t practice?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation fights to protect the separation of state and church — and nowhere do we fight harder than in the public schools. Our constitutional victories such as in Hannibal give us the confidence that we’re on the right track.

Sammi Lawrence is a staff attorney at the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Freedom From Religion Foundation. Her work focuses on advocacy, litigation and public education about the separation of state and church.