In addition to President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to be “closing the Department of Education,” one of the most disturbing planks of his educational platform is his commitment to “support bringing prayer back into our schools.” How could he bring back something that never left? “As long as there are math teststhere will be prayer in the schools,” said the late James Dunn of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.

Indeed, students’ freedom to pray is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and contrary to what Trump’s promise suggests, students are allowed to gather and pray together on school grounds. The government’s neutrality toward religion gives students the freedom to pray or not to pray however they choose without fear or favor.

What is not allowed is government sponsored prayer. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that government-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the First Amendment. Is this the type of coercive prayer Trump wants to “bring back?” Schools that make students pray? Trump’s prayer charade is not about students’ freedom to pray — or not pray — as their conscience dictates, but about using government power to force students to pray a certain way.

This week, in what could be a warning sign for Trump, a federal court ruled that it cited a 1980 Supreme Court case and said Louisiana could not enforce the new law. asking that the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in every public school in the state. The state promises to appeal, but the Supreme Court, conservative as it is, has not (yet) given the green light to completely dismantle the healthy boundaries between religion and government. The gates haven’t opened (yet). The kind of school prayer that Trump and his allies are advocating is still unconstitutional.

The fact that Trump seems to be teaching for more coercive school prayer anyway is part of his larger campaign to keep his supporters perpetually wounded.

I repeat: there is nothing at this time to forbid pupils in schools from praying, individually or collectively. And yet, one usually hears conservative Christians complain about how awful it is that prayer has been taken out of schools. Imagine the Supreme Court striking down a new law or policy that would compel students to pray in school. This would inevitably reinforce the idea that prayer has been taken out of schools and increase the resentment that fuels Trump’s political support.

Trump did a pushing school prayer in his first term, so what’s different now? The far-right religious legal movement sees a major opportunity for its cause in light of a 2022 Supreme Court decision, Kennedy v. Bremerton, involving a high school football coach who prayed with students on the 50-yard line. In writing the opinion for a 6-3 court, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the coach “quietly offered his prayers while his students were otherwise occupied” and did not rule on his actions at midfield.

According to Gorsuch’s statement of the facts, the Kennedy case did not green light government-sponsored coercive school prayer. Biden’s Department of Education issued updated guidance for prayer in public schools after that case, strengthening longstanding understanding of the Constitution: “Teachers, school administrators, and other school employees may not encourage or discourage private prayer or other religious activities.”

Even so, since then there has been a broad push for more prayer and religious observance in public schools throughout the country. In addition to Louisiana’s Ten Commandments Act, Texas, Louisiana and Florida have passed laws allowing “school chaplains” in public schools.

“Groups that track church-state issues say nationwide efforts to fund and empower religion — and, more specifically, a certain kind of Christianity — are more abundant and aggressive than they have been in years.” The Washington Post reported. Proponents of several government-sponsored prayers “see the Supreme Court as righting the American ship after half a century of misguided separation of church and state.”

These efforts undermine their purported cause of religious freedom. To attack public schools is to feed the discontent of his political base and blame the problems in the schools on the fact that they do not have government-mandated prayer. It is a tactic to spread division and incite anger.

Forcing our nation’s students to pray however Trump sees fit will only increase polarization. Listening to the government’s chosen prayer does not unite us. We are united as Americans by the freedom to pray, worship, and believe however we choose.