Religious Freedom at School

What Parents and Students Should Know

Philadelphia Bible Riots (1844)

Are the controversies new?

“Probably no deeper division of our people could proceed from any provocation than from finding it necessary to choose what doctrine and whose program public educational officials shall compel youth to unite in embracing.”-Justice Jackson, W. Va. State Bd. of Education v. Barnette (1943)

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...

Jehovah’s Witnesses flag salute cases

“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or action their faith therin.” – Justice Robert H. Jackson in West Va. State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

[I]n a nation with citizens of many different religious beliefs, the right of some to act upon their religious beliefs must sometimes be qualified by the government’s responsibility to further compelling public interests, such as the health and safety of all. Thoughtful authorities and scholars have wrestled with this tension for many years, and will continue to do so.

-Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Strengthening the Free Exercise of Religion” May 16, 2013

Wisconsin v.

Yoder

School District of

Abington Township v.

Schempp

Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran School

v. EEOC

The First Amendment provides, in part, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” We have said that these two Clauses “often exert conflicting pressures,” …and that there can be “internal tension . . . between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause,” …Not so here. Both Religion Clauses bar the government from interfering with the decision of a religious group to fire one of its ministers. - Hosanna Tabor Lutheran School v. EEOC

Selected Topics Prayer • Curriculum about Religion • Religious Expression

Clubs & Release Time • Opting Out

Prayer

By Johntex - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3661330

Curriculum About Religion

By ~crystalina~ (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Religious Dress and Expression

Harisingh at the English language Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)

By paterm (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)

The First Amendment does not—-and I will say again—-does not convert our schools into religion free zones…. The First Amendment does not require students to leave their religion at the schoolhouse door.

- President William J. Clinton, James Madison High School, Vienna, VA July 12, 1995

Release Time and Religious Clubs

Parents’ rights to opt out

Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them.

- Parker v. Hurley, 514 F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2008)

1. Is it legal to have an opening prayer at my high school graduation ceremony?

2. Do students have the right to wear religious symbols to school, regardless of the school’s dress code?

3. Can a Christian student club meet on school property?

4. Is it legal for my high school to offer a course called “The Bible as literature?”

5. Does the law protect my right as a parent to object to curriculum that violates my beliefs?

The crisis of religious freedom is as much a cultural crisis as a political or legal one. So get involved in the cultural and civic organizations around you so that you can influence them to respect religious freedom. Be active in the PTA and express your views to the school board; the future of religious freedom will depend a great deal on what our children are taught.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson, “Religious Freedom - A Cherished Heritage to Defend,” June 26, 2016

Additional Resources “A Parent’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools” National PTA, First Amendment Center http://www.newseuminstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Parents-Guide-to-Religion-in-the-Public-Schools.pdf “A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools” First Amendment Center http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/madison/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/teachersguide.pdf Religious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law, Center for Religion and Public Affairs Wake Forest University School of Divinity http://divinity.wfu.edu/files/2015/03/divinity-law-statement.pdf

Additional Resources Find these slides at: www.freedom-of-religion.org