## Facts

- Two consolidated constitutional complaints challenged opposing state actions regarding daily prayer in German public schools.
- In Hesse, parents at a non-denominational community school sought to continue a previously practiced, interdenominational daily prayer that school authorities had prohibited; lower decisions upheld the ban.
- In North Rhine–Westphalia, a parent objected to a daily Christian prayer conducted during teaching time at a Protestant public confessional school; the Federal Administrative Court upheld the practice.
- The complainants relied principally on freedom of faith and conscience (including the right not to participate) and parental rights; the states relied on their constitutional authority to supervise and organize schools.
- The disputes required the court to address how public schools may accommodate religious practice while protecting dissenting pupils from coercion and social pressure.

## Issues

1. Under what conditions may a German state permit school prayer in public schools consistent with constitutional school authority and state religious neutrality?
2. When does school-organized prayer violate the negative freedom of religion of dissenting pupils and the parental right to direct a child’s upbringing?
3. How should conflicts between positive religious freedom, negative religious freedom, parental rights, and the state’s educational mandate be reconciled?

## Decision

- The court held that school prayer is not categorically unconstitutional, but is permissible only under conditions that make participation genuinely voluntary and protect dissenters.
- The court ruled that positive and negative religious freedom have equal constitutional rank and must be balanced with parental rights and the state’s educational authority.
- In the Hesse case, the blanket prohibition on a properly structured voluntary, interdenominational prayer at a community school violated the complaining parents’ rights; the prohibition was set aside to that extent.
- In the North Rhine–Westphalia case, the prayer practice upheld by the Federal Administrative Court violated dissenters’ negative religious freedom and parental rights because it was tied to compulsory instruction and insufficiently shielded nonparticipants from coercion and stigma; the judgment was annulled to that extent.

## Legal Principles

- Both the freedom to practice religion and the freedom to abstain from religious practice are protected and are of equal rank; neither may be realized by negating the other.
- The state may permit religious references and practices in public schools only if it maintains neutrality among faiths and avoids coercive effects on pupils.
- Conflicts among constitutional rights in the school setting must be resolved by practical concordance: each interest must be accommodated as far as possible without maximizing one at the expense of the others.
- A constitutionally permissible school prayer requires, at minimum:
  - strict voluntariness and an effective opt-out without justification;
  - no disadvantages, sanctions, or stigmatization for nonparticipation, including protection against indirect social pressure;
  - in non-denominational community schools, an interdenominational character that does not press pupils toward confessional commitment;
  - organizational arrangements (time, setting, supervision) that make nonparticipation inconspicuous and free of exclusionary effects.
- Confessional public schools may reflect a stronger religious profile, but they still must protect dissenting pupils’ negative religious freedom through concrete, workable safeguards.

## Conclusion

The court permitted voluntary school prayer in public education only within a framework that treats positive and negative religious freedom as equally protected and that requires practical, non-stigmatizing protection for dissenters; practices embedded in compulsory instruction or structured in ways that create coercion are unconstitutional.


German School Prayer Case (Schulgebet), 52 BVerfGE 223 (F.C.C. Ger. 1979)