You’ve probably heard about the recent SCOTUS case involving a high school football coach who would pray on the 50 yard line after each game. He didn’t invite anyone to join him, but some people did. He was fired. (William sent along this article about it, which he correctly calls “skewed.”)
Everybody is supposed to have freedom of religion, and freedom from religion. The freedom of religion perspective would say the coach has every right to pray and can’t be fired for that. The freedom from religion perspective would argue the coach was subtly coercing students to pray, since he would clearly be more sympathetic towards the people who joined him.
I see merit in both arguments, but the former is more immediate and the latter more speculative. We can’t curtail a clear right on the chance that it causes some harm.
Of course, no one will address the actual problem, which is government-run schools. So many of these first amendment problems would vanish if schools weren’t run by the government.