New guidelines from the Trump administration are offering a clearer framework for religious freedom and expression in North Carolina public schools.
Guidance issued Feb. 5 by the United States Department of Education “makes clear that parents and children have a constitutional right to take part in public school in ways that align with their sincerely held religious beliefs,” according to a Department press release.
“The Trump Administration is proud to stand with students, parents, and faculty who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights in schools across our great nation,” said US secretary of education Linda McMahon in a statement. “Our Constitution safeguards the free exercise of religion as one of the guiding principles of our republic, and we will vigorously protect that right in America’s public schools.”
The updated guidelines specify that students, teachers, and employees do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The directive also emphasizes a stance of “neutrality among and accommodation toward all faiths, and hostility toward none.”
Mary Catherine Martin, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society, told Carolina Journal that the new language represents a significant strengthening of protections compared to previous guidance issued in 2023 under the Biden administration.
“The new guidance places a stronger emphasis on public schools’ obligation to positively accommodate religious expression by employees, students, and families, rather than just their obligation to tolerate religious expression on the same basis that other expression is permitted,” Martin said.
The new directives are rooted in two recent US Supreme Court decisions — Kennedy v. Bremerton School District in 2022 and Mahmoud v. Taylor in 2025.
The Kennedy decision protected the right of a public school football coach to engage in personal prayer, even with students present, provided those students participated voluntarily. Along those lines, the new department guidelines clarify that individual prayer, including by school employees, is protected under the Constitution, provided it isn’t coercive.
Martin noted that the Mahmoud decision was pivotal in shaping current guidelines regarding parental rights. The case found that schools place a burden on parents’ religious exercise when they mandate curricula that conflict with sincerely held religious beliefs, including those relating to sexuality or gender identity.
“In that case, the Supreme Court protected parents’ rights to be notified in advance of any instruction that burdens their families’ religious beliefs,” Martin said. “In other words, public schools must not only permit personal prayer as if it were any other speech — they must positively consider parents’ free exercise rights by not presenting curriculum or materials that burden families’ religious beliefs without parental notice and opt-out.”
The new directives have significant implications for North Carolina. Public school districts are now required to certify annually to the state that they have no policy preventing constitutionally protected prayer. The state government must report non-compliant school districts or risk potentially losing federal funds.
The guidelines could have bearing on a number of local cases in the Tar Heel State. In recent months, state lawmakers have questioned local school districts, including Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, for allegedly circumventing the new Parents’ Bill of Rights. The Cabarrus County School Board also recently grappled with whether to adopt a policy to authorize an opening prayer for each board meeting.
According to Martin, while there isn’t significant crossover between the new federal guidance and the specific text of the state law, the state statute may go further than the federal guidelines in protecting young students. But she noted that the state law and federal guidelines are built on the same foundation — “parents’ right to direct the moral and religious training of their children.”
