That certainly wasn’t the case when I was in high school. Granted, that was over 20 years ago, but we did indeed talk study various world religions in history class and their different set of beliefs, etc. I can’t remember any teacher ever making a remark like the one above. I mean, how can you teach history without talking about religion? How are students going to understand current events without knowing about religion?
Sorry, didn’t see that. It’s surprising that the Washington Post (source of the March 22 story in my link in the OP) is so short of news that they’re having to go with month-old stories.
Are these clubs held during school hours on school classroom? Are they part of the curriculum? Is equal time available to other sects to use classroom time and facilities? Did you bother to read the link in the OP or any of the posts previous to yours that explain exactly what the difference is?
Maybe because the story isn’t finished yet.
When I saw the post my first thought was this could lead to bullying and I read in the link a child was bullied very badly . Yes I think this is very unconstitutional
school and churches are suppose to separate if people want their child to have bible study they can send their kids to church or temple . I found this link which I thought was interested.
How can anyone hearing the name of the group sponsoring “Good News Clubs”-The Child Evangelism Fellowship-even pretend to believe that these clubs are non-denominational and/or non-indoctrinational?
Agreed. This is a 30 minute per week non-mandatory class receiving no public funding that the overwhelming majority of parents want. One parent (or charitably two or three) get to shut down this program for the 98% who want it.
If these kids are being bullied for not participating then that is certainly wrong, but it is just as equally wrong for the chess club and science geeks to get bullied. The bullying is a separate issue that doesn’t strike at what is going on here.
This type of establishment clause jurisprudence is absurd when it denies a large majority of the community of any type of activity it enjoys or believes is proper when the above caveats are met.
When the majority gets to participate in activities that are denied to the minority, the situation becomes on of “establishment.”
Would a Koran-study class be tolerated in the same school? Would it receive the same support, the same advantages, the same protection? What about the Wiccan class, or the Odinist?
Pandering to “the majority” is just the mechanism for establishment. True neutrality allows freedom of religion the benefit of official un-involvement. What’s being put into play here is dominionism, the rule of a majority religion as an official religion.
I doubt there is even one single Muslim student in Mercer County. Even if there was one, it cannot be said that it is discriminatory not to get instructors, allot time, allot space, etc. for a group of one. It is not done in any other area of life when there is a lack of demand.
If the school teaches foreign language, but half of the kids want to learn Spanish, most of the other half French, but I want my child to learn Olde English, the school will not teach it. Not because the school hates Olde English, but because of lack of demand.
Although this might be unfortunate for the single Muslim student, why should the remainder of the students and parents in Mercer County have to forego something that they believe is positive, something that they did as kids?
It does not matter in the slightest that such programs are sponsored by an evangelical organization.
Religiously oriented after school activities must be given equal access as non-religious after school activities. Period.
Public schools cannot favor one religion over another. Schools cannot bar religious programs while permitting non-religious programs, or vice versa.
Public schools cannot make the granting of access to facilities contingent on religious ideology. If the Future Farmers or Chess Clubs get to use a classroom after school for meetings then the school cannot bar religious oriented groups the same access. Nor can the school permit religious groups access while denying it to secular, explicitly atheistic groups, or groups of a differing religious affiliation.
Though I am no lawyer, basic time, place, and manner restrictions universally applied to all after school student groups would most assuredly pass constitutional muster. In that way there is a similarity to free speech on public grounds issues.
It wasn’t clear to me that its part of the regular curriculum held during school hours. If so then its a problem.
Previous posts objected to religious activities taking place on school grounds; school faculty being involved; people only being cool with it because its christianity; stuff like that.
Well, then they can have it after regular school hours.
Better yet, have it at church.
Let’s pretend that this class happens at 3:00p.m. on Fridays. If the sign on the front door says:
SCHOOL HOURS 8am-3pm WEEKDAYS
then the class is constitutional.
If it says
SCHOOL HOURS 8am-3pm M-TH, 8am-3:30pm F
then the class is unconstitutional? That would be strange to say the least.
Again, 99% of students or their parents want this class. They are already in a building that is conducive to teaching a class. No matter, though, for the sake of adhering to an establishment clause only realized in the last half of the last century, these people must engage in a meaningless formalism of walking down the street to another building which may not be as conducive to learning, simply to placate the left?
Actually, yes, it is, in many cases.
Discrimination against “only one kid” is okay? That’s an extraordinarily rotten moral system.
And what if there were “only two?” Or “only five?” Or “only seven per cent?”
That’s the problem with this reasoning: it establishes the majority as the norm.
That does not appear to be the case here: it is part of the state curriculum, administered by the state, and which the school has chosen to offer as an elective course, at least according to this other article which I’ve found. That means it is state action, not a club organized by parents or students, and therefore must comply with the First Amendment.
Mother sues to stop Bible classes in West Virginia schools
I think it’s not as black-and-white as that. Because religion is such a personal and subjective matter, where the school gives its imprimatur to a particular religion, that may be, in some cases, the basis for bullying to occur. Neutrality by the school may help to prevent religious bullying. I think that’s an issue that would have to be determined at trial.
But that’s what an established church is: a majority of the community believes that a certain religious activity is enjoyable and proper, and uses public resources to advance it.
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Minority rights cannot be dependent on what the majority wants.
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It is not an empty formalism to draw a distinction between a public building, operated by the government out of public funds, and a private building, operated and paid for by the adherents of a particular religion. The balance is drawn by the First Amendment itself: governments stay out of supporting religion, and religious adherents have the right to free exercise in their own ways and on their own property. That walk down the street is the First Amendment in action.
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I find it odd that anyone who asserts a right under the Constitution, established by We the People as a whole to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” is called a leftist.
That, alas, just shows how far the right has sunk in our time.
I’ll go ahead and throw the obligatory legal cite into the mix. And it is so exactly on point…
Good News Club v. Milford Central School from the Supreme Court. Decided 2001.
The school had no problem allowing the Boy Scouts to conduct a program to “influence a boy’s character, development, and spiritual growth.” But the school balked at a religious organization proposing to do much the same.
Not surprisingly the Supreme Court ruled that access to a "limited public forum"could not be restricted on the basis of religion.
This case was entirely about after school programs. That timing was clearly a point of issue that was important. The Court’s analysis of their Establishment Clause jurisprudence was that the Court never, “extended… to foreclose private religious conduct during nonschool hours merely because it takes place on school premises where elementary school children may be present.”
The Court’s Establishment Clause analysis indicated several issues that could result in such a program being barred access: Make the program a part of school hours; make it a part of the curriculum that does not require parental permission; or make it a formally school sponsored event. If the current West Virginia has any of those issues as a part of its religious instruction program then the courts will likely rule that it is unconstitutional.
So long as the government permits other organizations to use public facilities at public expense then they cannot refuse the same neutral access to a particular organization because of its religious nature. That must is demanded by the First Amendment, so saith the court.
Rights of religious expression do not end at the school door.
See also: Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District. A 1993 unanimous ruling by SCOTUS that a religious organization had a First Amendment right of access to schools to show religious films since other non-religious groups had similar access.
Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. The Court’s 5-4 ruling upheld the First Amendment right of a registered student organization at a public university to receive student program funding collected from student activity fees on an equal basis to non-religious registered student organization programs.
Your point is true, and substantially what’s already been said in this thread. But it’s about after school programs, not “electives”.