President Donald Trump announced on Monday (September 8) that the Ministry of Education will issue new instructions on prayer protection in public schools. He declared a statement to hear the religious commission for religious freedoms of the White House, which took place at the Bible Museum in Washington, DC.
The event, the thematic “religious freedom in public education” meant the second public meetings of the Commission.
Trump: “Do you want to have a great nation, you must have a religion”
Trump, who often pledged to restore religion to American life, came to the crowd just after 10:30 and thanked the commission for her work.
“If you want to have a great nation, you have to have a religion – I believe it so strongly,” he said. “We have to go through something after all, and that something is God.”
Before revealing a new initiative of the Ministry of Education, he accused a public school of “indoctrinization of students with antireligious propaganda”. The details of the instructions were not immediately clear.
Wider agenda
In his nearly one -hour notes, Trump introduced other priorities, including the deployment of the National Guard to limit the crime in Washington, DC, the fight against what he described as “anti -Christian bias” and pushed back against the perceived “Wokeness” at the Smithsonian Institution.
“Honestly, they make changes, you know,” he said. “They were also told what to do people who came in front of me, in all justice, but they were making changes. There are major changes in Smithsonian.”
Prayer
The speech was closed by a prayer led by the Minister of Housing and the development of the city Scott Turner. Trump then said: “The United States has always been a nation that believes in the power of prayer. We will defend our freedoms, our values, our sovereignty and we will defend our freedom.”
In conclusion, he closed optimistically, “We are at the very beginning of the golden age.” He stepped out of the stage for “Amazing Grace”.
Long -term legal debate
Public schools were excluded from leading prayers in the classroom since the 1962 Supreme Court’s decision, which found that such practices had violated the first amendment. However, students retained their right to pray privately or in groups during their free time.
Trump previously issued revised instructions in 2020, while the administration of former President Joe Biden updated the rules in 2023 to emphasize that schools could take “reasonable steps” to ensure that students were not forced to pray.
During his 2023 campaign, Trump committed himself to support “bringing prayer to our schools”, which has now been repeated in his second period of politics.
(Tagstotranslate) Commission for religious freedoms of the White House
