"In this provocative work, Frank S. Ravitch redirects the heated debate over prayer in the public schools. He asserts that current legal discourse, which centers this hotly contested issue around First Amendment rights, underestimates the ways in which school prayer fosters discrimination against religious minorities and dissenters.

Arguing that traditional Constitutional doctrine is inadequate to address the harmful effects of public school religious exercises, Ravitch looks to civil rights principles and anti-discrimination laws for an alternative approach."--BOOK JACKET.