It’s no big deal, he said.

When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last week signed a bill allowing religious chaplains into public schools, he insisted he was only returning public schools to their “original intent.” “It used to be, I mean, when education in the United States first started, every school was a religious school. That was just part of it. Public schools were religious schools,” he claimed. “I think what we’re doing is restoring the sense of purpose that our Founding Fathers wanted to see in education.”

In reality, the actual Founders—not the ones DeSantis and other MAGA politicians like to imagine—never could agree on how American public schools should teach religious ideas. One historical fact is clear, however: They would have been horrified at what DeSantis said after enacting the law.

This is not only a Florida problem. The new law is a copy of a 2023 law in Texas. Fourteen other states are considering something similar. The law allows religious ministers to volunteer in public schools to counsel students. The law does take some steps to ensure that students aren’t forced to, say, pray at school: School districts don’t have to participate, and if they do, they have to publish a list of chaplains and their religious denominations; and parents have to opt in to the program.

Yet the fundamental problem remains. The program smashes through the wall between church and school, and it’s patently unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled in cases like 1948’s McCollum v. Champaign that public schools could not invite preachers in. DeSantis seems to be banking on the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to back this norm-breaking law—a safe bet, given the number of court opinions in recent years that have allowed religion into public schools, including a 2020 decision that........

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