You know. I almost cannot believe I am going to say this, but there is the option of keeping your opinions mostly to yourself. I avoided the incident largely by being religious in high school. I am totally for anyone with the willingness to sacrifice his personal reputation to pull it off, but realize that there are social costs of doing it. I say that because I am more prone to do that now more than then in life. There are subtle ways of disobedience as well, such as being honest with your friends about your feelings while respecting other people’s feelings. Just think, would you drink a beer (or soda) from this guy. Could you enjoy him if you were not talking about religion.
I just say this because I keep my opinions more to myself in certain settings, like work. At least more than I used to. An adult version of that would be; should I call the union about where I work, and what we are financially worth, and what are the risks.
What if she chose to read her Bible aloud in her classroom? As long as she doesn’t quiz the kids on it, it’s ok, right? Hardly. Either way, she is choosing to broadcast a religious message to minors that are in the classroom by mandate, not choice. If it isn’t illegal, it should be.
If this teacher, an individual who has been appointed to a position of authority over minors in a government institution, is broadcasting a persuasive religious message in her classroom, then that is an establishment of religion.
What if she tunes in to Howard Stern in the morning? Do you think anyone is going to stand for that? If you ask me, the radio shouldn’t be played in the classroom, period, unless the students request it; and by no means should an offensive (which includes religiously persuasive) message be played. Hasn’t this teacher ever heard of headphones?
Whoever quoted the 1st amendment was right, it doesn’t literally say that the government is separate from religion.
However, the Establishment Clause (asthe section quoted is known) has been repeatedly taken to mean just that, the government is separate from religion. I would make an argument like this. The legislature (Congress) makes the laws (which can in no way support a religious institution), the executive acts out those laws, and the Supreme Court judges whether those laws are within the bounds of the constitution. Thus, every government action will fal within the bounds of laws inacted by Congress and if any government agency (school being one) acts outside the bounds of the Constitution, then that action is unconstitutional and therefore unlawful and that agency cannot do it.
And, as for it being simply a matter of taste (him not liking the programs, and is forcing someone to listen to something they don’t like unconstititional)… Well, religion is not just a matter of taste. How you feel about religion is not the same as disliking Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers. Suggest to someone that their religion is as important as a TV show… As it is, the Supreme Court’s opinion is that A) the teacher is an employee of the government and is therefore bound by the establishment cluase and B) the students MUST be there and so any propoganda or advertisement aimed at them is aimed at a captive audience and therefore is an abridgement of their freedom. I think…
She is not proclaiming her beliefs and she is not reading from the bible (or Chick Tracts or anything else).
She is playing entertainment. Her particular entertainment happens to include “inspirational messages.” Would you folks be claiming First Amendment abridgement if she was playing straight Rock and Roll? Heavy Metal? Both of those genres advocate messages opposed by many believers, especially Fundamentalist believers. Heavy Metal has a fair amount of explicitly Satanic messages. (The messages are historically innacurate and lame, but they are there, nonetheless.)
I am in favor of telling her to turn down the volume as distracting. I am not sure why anyone is allowed to play the radio in a classroom, to begin with. However, the school administration appears to have no problem with teachers playing radios. Therefore, the issue of what the “employers” will allow is moot. Once the decision is made by the administration that they will let the teachers play radios, it is up to the teacher to choose the music she likes.
She is engaging in bad pedagogy, but she is not violating the First Amendment.
I do not see that the message is at all persuasive (since such shows are oriented to believers and the message is meaningless to those who do not believe). It is not even pervasive, since, by eggo’s account, the “messages” are interruptions in the general format of (rather bad) music.
I agree that eggo should not have to listen to that junk. I disagree that this is a Constitutional issue. (You might get me to go along with it being a Constitutional issue if she listened to the Moody Bible Institute playing continuous sermons and lectures. “Christian music” is entertainment, even when the DJ throws in inspirational moments.)
By definition, Christian radio is intended to be persuasive. Part of the mission of most religious broadcasters is to bring those who may not be “believers” into their fold, and if not into their fold, at least into the Christian religion.
I think that at the very least, the teacher is being very inconsiderate of the feelings of her students by keeping the radio in a location away from her. I do think that if there is no consensus on what to listen to, the radio should go away.
Do you honestly believe that? I mean that seriously, not sarcastically. It meets every definition of the word “proclaim” in my Webster’s Ninth.
Yes, if those messages specifically went against a religion or religions. If it was something generic like saying “everybody dance!” to someone whose religion forbids dancing, it’d be debatable, but this is pretty clear cut. Also, this isn’t one or two songs out of ten, it’s the entire channel, played in a way that is impossible to avoid.
You had said that it would be an abridgement of the teacher’s rights to have to change the station. I pointed out that this happens all the time at non-government employers. Perhaps I should have stated explicitly that if it happens at non-government employers, it will go double at a part of the government, much less a school.
I don’t think this is so much a matter of SOCAS as much as it is simple civility. Since eggo wrote: the radio is not next to her desk, but rather on the oposite side of the room, clearly meant for all to hear.
I think the issue is simply a matter of asking how the students are supposed to study\work\whatever with the radio playing at such a level that it can be clearly heard from across the room??
The radio should either move to the teacher’s desk, or it should go away.
Horsefeathers. She most certainly is doing the proclaiming here, just as she would be if she were to ask them to diagram sentences out of the Watchtower. The fact that she didn’t write the Watchtower would be irrelevant. She would still be forcing a religious message on the captive audience of her students. “I’m not proselytizing yer’onner, it’s just the radio that’s doing it.” Uh-huh.
Insofar as heavy metal music goes, there is very little of it that is truly “Satanic.” It often glorifies opposition to authority, violence, and death, but I don’t think you hear too many “Praise Lucifer’s” in there. Actually, it would be a minor miracle if you could understand half the lyrics without liner notes, but that’s another matter. In any case, coming across a song with a particular religious message is worlds away from listening to Fundie 101.7. On the one hand, your classic rock station might play Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” in rotation every 8 days or so, but Fundie 101.7 has no content that is not religious in nature. It is a constant stream of Christianity from which there is no escape. The messages aren’t just between the songs, they are also contained within them. The music played on these stations are all Jesus-is-Great-Praise-the-Father songs. Hardly wualifies as “merely” entertainment.
There is not enough content in that stuff to qualify as a “message.” As I noted, six hours from the Moody Bible Institute would be arguably propaganda. The stuff eggo described is simply not serious enough to qualify.
I can get a half dozen kids together in ten minutes that can describe the Satanic lyrics in Heavy Metal. The fact that some people cannot understand it does not change its content.
The radio should be turned off as an irritating distraction. As described, I cannot find the First Amendment abridgement.
There are two issues here requiring two different responses.
If the radio is being played too loud for you to be able to study, the issue should be brought before the class as a whole. Whatever volume level is acceptable to the majority (turning it down or leaving it as it is) is what should be adopted.
If the issue is that you find the Christian message offensive, go back to work and keep your mouth shut. Teachers have as much right to the practice of their religion as anyone else. You don’t have to agree with it; you just have to live with it.
Imagine the radio is tuned to some station you enjoy or some message with which you agree. That is the correct volume.
If the ACLU (or anyone else) feels that religious speech has to be muted but everything else is OK, the ACLU (and everyone else) can go pound sand. Content-based censorship is a direct violation of the First Amendment.
Wow Tom, you have an awfully high bar for what constitutes content. In an arena where merely posting the Ten Commandments is verboten, you will let modern hymns be played all day? No message? Every song is a “Praise The Lord” or “Give Thanks on High” or “Jesus Saved Me” commercial! I don’t know. Maybe you live in some weird alternate universe where religious radio isn’t constantly spouting religious instruction and “Ain’t-it-great-to-be-Christian” songs.
While I agree that teachers have as much right to the practice of their religion as anyone else, I don’t believe they should be practicing it in a public schoolroom. A teacher is a person of authority, sometimes greatly admired by her/his students, and when a teacher plays a Christian station with earshot of his/her students, it may have more influence than the radio station choice of the students’ peers.
I’m with bdgr on this one; I don’t want someone else’s religion shoved down my child’s throat.
Well, the fact of the matter is that the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution to mean that we don’t have to live with it, thank you very much.
As in real estate, the key issue here is “location, location, location.” You can preach to whomever you want, so long as it isn’t a captive audience of children. You can believe and even teach whatever you like, just keep it out of the government sponsored schools. And by the way, there are lots of “content-based censorship” cases which the law says is perfectly fine for one reason or another. As I recall, a favorite of the Fundie crowd crying “censorship” over religious issues is getting books banned from schools.
Yeah, the teacher is FREE to be Christian. In fact, she can stand on a street corner and preach (as long as she doesn’t block it or accost pedestrians).
BUT the fact of the matter is the students cannot leave. They have to be there. And they have to listen to it. And, tom, I really don’t know what Christian radio you listen to, I’ve lessened visits to a friend’s house solely because he constantly plays Christian radio. They call it Christian not because the DJ’s advocate it, but because the songs do. Seriously, If you listen, it’s “He loves me I know for the Bible tells me so” for about 4 minutes, set to pop music. It’s as if the teacher is standing in front of the class and saying, with every others sentence “Worship my God” “Jesus is the Savior” “You’re going to burn in Hell for not thinking like I do”.
Shodan, the ACLU doesn’t want to quash religion, it just wants to keep it out of government. The teacher can wear a cross, put a WWJD sticker on her car, get the word “Jesus” tatooed on her left breast, what ever. However, she cannot preach to the children in her class.
The reason why? The difference between a street corner and a classroom is that the people on the street corner can leave. The children can’t.
Of course, that’s only if it’s a PUBLIC school, or any institution receiving public funds (maybe only as a majority of their funding).
So not only should the radio not be playing at all (music is damn distracting), it should definitely not be playing Christian radio.
Teachers are citizens. If the teacher in this situation chooses to listen to Christian music or preaching, and it is not interfering with learning (the OP mentioned that he/she was doing better in this alternative school than in a regular one, so this is clearly not the issue), the students are being taught a valuable lesson. Namely, that other people have opinions and beliefs with which you may or may not agree, and it is not your business to try to shut them up.
Or are we establishing yet another area in which the Constitution does not apply? ‘Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, or interfering with the free practice thereof’ - except in public around Christmastime.
Or within 100 feet of an abortion clinic.
Or in the workplace.
Or in schools.
Or in the presence of anyone whose entire belief system would be destroyed by the sight of someone disagreeing with them in public.
No, despite the fact that it is an alternative school, it is still a public school, as stated in the OP. The courts have ruled in the past that teachers in the classroom are the agents of the school, and thereby the government. She may listen to anything she likes either on her own time, or with headphones. What she may not do is promote any particular religion, or religion over nonreligion while acting as an agent of the government. Now, I know of no specific case directed against playing Christian radio, however even so much as hanging religious pictures on the wall and posting the Ten Commandments have been struck down by the courts because the children are a captive audience who may not be subjected to religious indoctrination on government property.
This teacher may freely exercise her right to worship whom she pleases, just as she may exercise her right to bear arms–just not at school. I’m sorry you feel indignant over not being able to ram religion down kids’ throats, but that’s the way the Supreme Court bounces.
Really? You’re not a supreme court justice, are you?
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And the students would be property then, right? And the parents of the students… Well, they ain’t citizens either, I suppose.
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The assumption you make is the student is doing better in this environment compared to his old as a whole. The assumption you cannt make but try to is that he is doing better in this school with music than without. Apples and oranges.
Other people sure do have opinions that differ from mine. This is not the issue.
What don’t you understand that there is a time and a place to express these opinions, and as a teacher getting paid by tax dollars in an institution funded by my tax dollars and influencing my kid with their actions makes this neither the time nor the place.
And it is quite my business when to “try to shut them up” when they are infringing upon my rights to be free from religious blather while in a federally funded place where my kids are supposed to learn, not about Contemporary Christian Music, but math and spelling.
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No, not in public per se. Feel free to put a manger on your lawn. That’s in public view on private property. Have a blast.
But on or in publicly funded places, like a courthouse or a school? No, sorry.
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This protects the rights of those who wish to go into the clinic without bullshit. The right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose - Ever heard that one? It applies here.
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I’d like a cite, please.
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Indeed. Public schools are public. Not a place for religious expression in a lot of ways, including IMHO the radio in the OP.
Geez, you don’t pay attention.
In public, feel free to do what you want. In a public SCHOOL or in a publicly owned or funded place, it is infringing on other people’s rights.
Yer pal,
Satan
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I do not have to live with it. I can walk away from anyone who tries to preach to me. This is not about exceptions to the constitution. The schoolroom is a goverment funded enviroment and the government has every right to control that environment. This is not the teachers’ own time or space to do with as they please. They are at work.
I have a dress code as well as a code of conduct I must follow at work. I have no problem with that as long as I am being paid fairly.
I agree that there should be no radio playing at all. There should, at least, be a rule that the person who wants silence always wins. This is the rule we had when I had 5 roommates. We would argue about what music or tv station to have on and the rule was always that anyone who wanted silence, for whatever reason, wins the argument. That included keeping your voices down and not playing football in the hall. Headphones were permitted.
This seems a reasonable rule for a study environment unless the music is part of the lesson plan. Now, if the christian music IS a part of the lesson plan, there should also be lessons on other common religions and philosophies. All of these lessons should be more informative and less evangelical.
