Tag Archives: Education

A Bunny is a Bunny

Posted on March 28, 2013 by | 7 Comments

I guess it was bound to happen. A public elementary school in Alabama has renamed its annual Easter Egg Hunt to avoid giving offense to non-Christian children and parents. According to the school’s principal, Lydia Davenport, the hunt will still take place; it will just no longer have the word “Easter” attached to it. The seasonal rabbit will likewise go nameless:

“Kids love the bunny,” smiles Davenport, “and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion; a bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit,” Davenport concluded.

Well, you can’t argue with that. Most disputes about public holiday displays in America involve Christmas, of course. This is so, I think, because Easter, although far more important as a religious holiday, is relatively minor as a public holiday. Perhaps that’s because it falls on a Sunday. Compared to Christmas, Easter passes by almost without notice in America. But there’s no reason we can’t fight over it as well. Let the Easter Wars begin.

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Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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Mead on the “Christian Taliban” at West Point

Posted on December 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

At the always valuable Via Meadia, Walter Russell Mead has an interesting post concerning last week’s allegations by a former cadet that a “Christian Taliban” harasses non-believers at the US Military Academy. Mead is skeptical it’s as bad as the former cadet says and argues that Christianity in the military is a good thing. Nonetheless, he says, it’s important to strike a balance between the rights of believers and non-believers and he suggests that West Point review the situation. Serious Christians know, he writes, that their faith requires them to show “respect, fairness, and friendship for those outside the fold.”

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Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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Berner on Educational Pluralism

Posted on November 15, 2012 by | Leave a comment

First Things has just posted an important and thoughtful essay by Ashley Berner, “The Case for  Educational Pluralism.” Berner (left), co-director of the Moral Foundations of Education Project at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture — and an occasional guest blogger at CLR Forum — argues that pluralism can offer great benefits and help resolve tensions in public education.

Unlike the American model, which relies on government to deliver education, the pluralist model involves government funding of private schools. These schools may reflect a variety of beliefs and perspectives, both religious and non-religious; public oversight is limited to ensuring that general educational requirements are met. Berner points out that many Western democracies have such systems, which allow greater educational diversity than the American model. Moreover,  pluralism avoids a central problem of American public education: a false neutrality that masks a secularist philosophy many parents reject.

Berner concedes that educational pluralism comes with problems of its own and may face constitutional difficulties under current law. But, she writes, pluralism “offers an honest acknowledgement of the myriad value judgments inherent in any education and generously accommodates a variety of beliefs and opinions in a way more congruous with the United States’ democratic political philosophy than does the current system. While some people fear that such pluralism would produce division and harm the students educationally, evidence suggests that, in fact, pluralism often yields superior civic and academic results.” Read the whole thing.

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Posted in Ashley R. Berner, Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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Massachusetts High Court to Hear Challenge to Pledge of Allegiance

Posted on November 3, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to hear a challenge to a state law requiring schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Plaintiffs, a Secular Humanist family with children in Massachusetts public schools, argue that the phrase, “under God,” in the Pledge violates a state constitutional ban on religious discrimination. Eight years ago, in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, the US Supreme Court dismissed a federal constitutional challenge to the Pledge on the ground that the plaintiff in that case lacked standing. It doesn’t look like standing will be a problem in the Massachusetts case, however, so the Massachusetts court may well reach the merits. Apparently, there is little case law under the state constitution that addresses the question. Can Newdow  provide any guidance? Newdow is noteworthy mostly for Justice O’Connor’s concurrence, arguing that the phrase “under God” would be permissible under the Establishment Clause as a sort of ceremonial deism. It will be interesting to see whether the Massachusetts court adopts similar reasoning under the state constitution. The case is Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District.

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Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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Religious Organizations and the Affirmative Action Case

Posted on October 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In America this week, the big legal news was the Supreme Court’s oral argument in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, a case concerning the constitutionality of race-based affirmative action in higher education. This will be the second time in a decade that the Court has addressed this issue, and the case has potentially huge ramifications. It’s not surprising, therefore, that Fisher has drawn great interest. Hundreds (!) of amicus briefs were filed in the case, most of which will be read, if at all, only by hapless law clerks. Among these was a brief from about a dozen religious organizations and campus ministries, including the National Council of Churches, the United Methodists, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (USA). These organizations, the brief explains, support affirmative action partly for religious reasons: in order to affirm “all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God.” The organizations depend on racial diversity in universities, the brief continues, in order to “fulfill their own missions of helping their members grow in their faith, understanding and compassion; providing the tools their members will need to reach their full potential as individuals in our ever-changing pluralistic society; and cultivating leaders for the next generation.” Secularist organizations such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State strongly protested, asserting that religious organizations had no right to interfere in a matter of public debate in order to advance a narrow sectarian position, or to rely on religious propositions inaccessible to non-believers.

Just kidding about that last part.

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Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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Larson, “Larson’s Creationism in the Classroom: Cases, Statutes, and Commentary”

Posted on October 4, 2012 by | Leave a comment

This October, West Law will publish Larson’s Creationism in the Classroom: Cases, Statutes, and Commentary by Edward J. Larson (Pepperdine University School of Law). The publisher’s description follows.

This casebook, by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, explores fundamental legal issues relating to how scientific and religious concepts of biological origins should be presented in public-school biology courses. Although numerous legal arguments are invoked, the Establishment Clause typically stands at or near the center of most disputes: Does teaching Darwinism or creationism, or disparaging them, in public schools promote or hinder religious belief in violation of the First Amendment? In grappling with this question in various forms as presented in differing fact situations over the past half century, American courts have examined the meaning of the Establishment Clause and sharpened their interpretation of it. This is the first and only casebook devoted to this topic, and it is ideal for use in education law programs, constitutional law seminars, and legal history courses.

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Posted in Jordan Hummel, Scholarship Roundup

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Pandya, “Muslim Women and Islamic Resurgence”

Posted on September 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Next Month, I. B. Tauris Publishers will publish Muslim Women and Islamic Resurgence: Religion, Education and Identity Politics in Bahrain by Sophia Pandya (California State University Long Beach).  The publisher’s description follows.

Bahrain’s tumultuous political landscape often overshadows the societal upheavals that this tiny country is facing. Sophia Pandya cuts through this to examine how international Islamic revivalism coupled with increased secular education has impacted Muslim women’s religious practice and public position. She unsettles assumptions that education is a secularising force for Muslim women, showing that modern education among Bahraini women has in fact deepened both their engagement with Islam and their political participation. Uncovering what transpires when newly educated women have the opportunity to reinterpret religion and gain access to the work place and the political arena, Pandya sheds light on the complex intersections between women and public life, education and Islam. This book provides great insights into religious women’s efforts towards self-determination within conservative Islamic movements as well as the impact of globalisation and wider economic and political developments in Bahrain.

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Posted in Scholarship Roundup, Yosefa A. Heber

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Faour on Religious Education and Pluralism in Egypt and Tunisia

Posted on September 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Muhammad Faour (Carnegie Middle East Center) has published Religious Education and Pluralism in Egypt and Tunisia, a contribution to the Carnegie Institute’s Working Paper Series. The abstract follows.

Religion occupies a prominent position in the education systems of all Arab countries. With the rise of Islamists across the Arab world, especially in Egypt and Tunisia, there is a possibility that the new parties in power will update education curricula to reflect conservative Islamic beliefs. Education is very important for any ideological party that assumes political power. And in the long run, the Islamists of Egypt and Tunisia will target education reform to ensure that more Islamic content is included in all students’ schooling. But in the short term, the emerging power of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in Egypt and Ennahda in Tunisia is unlikely to lead to a dramatic change in the curricula Continue reading →

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Posted in Mark L. Movsesian, Scholarship Roundup

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Calabresi and Salander on Religion and the Equal Protection Clause

Posted on September 5, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Here’s an important new paper,  Religion and the Equal Protection Clause, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment independently forbids state action that discriminates on the basis of religion, even without incorporation of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. Steve Calabresi (Northwestern) and a student co-author defend this novel claim by looking to the Fourteenth Amendment’s original meaning. They also reference trends in foreign constitutional and international human rights law. (Originalism and comparative constitutionalism – there’s an unusual combination). The wide-ranging and provocative paper also argues that public education, as currently funded, is unconstitutional. Here’s the abstract:

This article argues that state action that discriminates on the basis of religion is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Doctrine even if it does not violate the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment. State action that discriminates on the basis of religion should be subject to strict scrutiny and should almost always be held unconstitutional. We thus challenge the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez in which a 5 to 4 majority of the Court wrongly allowed a California state school to discriminate against a Christian Legal Society chapter on the basis of religion. We defend our argument that the Fourteenth Amendment bans Continue reading →

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Posted in Scholarship Roundup, Mark L. Movsesian

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Yesterday’s High School Graduation Ruling: Three Quick Observations

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

As Marc notes below, the Seventh Circuit handed down what could be a major Establishment Clause case yesterday, Doe v. Elmbrook School District. The case involves a Wisconsin school district’s decision to hold public high school graduation ceremonies inside an Evangelical church sanctuary. Relying on three different tests found in the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence — the endorsement test of cases like McCreary, the coercion test of Lee and Santa Fe, and the no-proselytism test of Stone v. Graham — the Seventh Circuit ruled, en banc, that the ceremonies violated the Constitution. Here’s a good summation of the reasoning from the decision itself: “An unacceptable amount of religious endorsement and coercion occurred when the District held important civil ceremonies in the proselytizing environment of Elmbook Church.” 

The case contains three strong dissents, including a not-very-thinly disguised cert petition by Judge Ripple and two quote-worthy excoriations of the Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence by Judges Easterbrook and Posner.  I’m not sure the Court will actually grant cert, and if it does, I’d have to guess that Justice Kennedy, frequently the swing vote in Establishment Clause cases, would agree with the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning about coercion, anyway. But there’s a lot in the case to think about. I’d like to make just three quick observations here:

• Neutrality: the case makes clear that “neutrality,” both among religions and between religion and non-religion, remains the “touchstone” of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. In theory, the Supreme Court’s Continue reading →

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Posted in Commentary, Mark L. Movsesian

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