Moment of Silence Has No Place in Schools

It is ironic that John Balzar would suggest that only the narrow-minded would oppose a moment of silence because “it might be seen as a victory for prayer” (“Silence is Golden,” Commentary, Dec. 16) since, just a few days earlier, The Times printed a story detailing how a federal court had to invalidate a Louisiana school prayer law precisely because that state’s legislature attempted to transform a moment of silent meditation into an act permitting spoken prayer in public classrooms (Dec. 12).

While there cannot be and has never been a law that would prevent an individual student from saying a prayer while at school, laws to sanction school-sponsored moments of silence are often nothing more than misguided attempts to impose a sense of religious devotion into what should be a secular environment.

Ollamon C. Alexander

Pasadena