As children returned to class this fall, there was renewed debate over the role of religion in the public schools. In two cases involving textbooks, appeals court panels overturned recent lower court victories for conservative Christian parents.
In one of the cases, the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling that banned 44 textbooks from Alabama’s public schools because the books advanced the “religion” of secular humanism. In a separate ruling, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Tennessee public school students may not “opt out” of reading classes that use material offensive to their religious beliefs.
Tennessee Reading Classes
The Tennessee decision reversed a federal district court ruling that the Hawkins County Public Schools had violated families’ rights by requiring children to read textbooks that offended their deeply held fundamentalist Christian beliefs. U.S. District Court Judge Thomas G. Hull ruled last year that the children could sit out of such reading classes and be taught those courses at home. He also awarded the families more than $50,000 in damages.
But in late August, a three-judge appeals court panel unanimously overturned that ruling, saying the required reading did not “create an unconstitutional burden under the free exercise clause [of the First Amendment]” because the students were “not required to affirm or deny a belief.”
The case began in 1983, when seven families objected to the Holt, Rinehart and Winston reading series. Among problems cited by the parents were passages on witchcraft, astrology, pacifism, and feminism. Writing for the appeals court panel, Chief Judge Pierce Lively said the families assumed “that material clearly presented as poetry, fiction and even ‘make-believe’ … were presented as facts which the students were required to believe. Nothing on the record supports this assumption.” In a separate but concurring opinion, Judge Daniel Boggs pointed out the ruling means “the school board recognizes no limitation on its power to require any curriculum, no matter how offensive or one-sided, and to expel those who will not study it, so long as it does not violate the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment].”
The liberal group People for the American Way, which provided legal representation for the Hawkins County Public Schools, hailed the ruling as a “landmark victory for schools and for religion.” However, Michael Farris, attorney for the parents, said the appeals court decision is an example of the discrimination fundamentalist Christians face in the courts. Farris told a news conference the ruling means “the First Amendment only applies in cases of brainwashing” in the public schools. The parents said they will appeal the ruling to the full appeals court. Both sides expect the case ultimately to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Alabama Case
In another unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Alabama public schools to use 44 textbooks that a lower court had banned from the classroom. The appeals court judges said U.S. District Court Judge W. Brevard Hand erred in his March ruling, which said the books promoted the “religion” of secular humanism and were therefore unconstitutional.
A group of more than 600 Christian parents brought the lawsuit against the Alabama textbooks, charging that the state had illegally advanced the religion of secular humanism by giving it preferential treatment over other religions in the textbooks. The appeals court said even if the texts lacked adequate coverage of certain religions, that does not constitute “an advancement of secular humanism or an active hostility toward theistic religion.” The appeals court did not address the issue of whether secular humanism is in fact a religion, as the parents and the lower court had asserted.
Alabama school officials praised the ruling, but the parents have vowed to continue their fight by appealing the decision. Bob Skolrood, executive director of the National Legal Foundation, which provided legal support for the parents, said if this decision stands there will be a “mass exodus” of Christians from the public schools. He said both the Alabama and Tennessee rulings mean “the school board writes the curriculum, and if you don’t like it, here’s the door.”
Like It Or Lump It
Other observers agree these cases could affect how some Christians fit into the public-school system. John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a religious-liberties organization, said both cases point out the “tough problems” facing many Christian students attending public schools. Whitehead said the Tennessee case, known as Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education, is especially significant. “If Mozert doesn’t win,” he said, “then the door will be closed—at least for now—on further attacks on public schools from a religious-liberties vantage.”
The Washington-based Association for Public Justice (APJ,) an advocate of Christian principles in public life, also expressed concern. “The cases … seem to indicate there’s not a growing consensus on the ‘nonneutrality’ of curriculum,” said APJ spokesman Tom McWhertor. “They perpetuate the myth that material used in the public schools is neutral.” He said the U.S. Supreme Court decision against a Louisiana law requiring balanced teaching of creation science and evolution further confirms this trend.
Forest Montgomery, counsel to the National Association of Evangelicals’ Office on Public Affairs, said the danger is that “schools now have the license to impose their will on the parents, and the only recourse many will have is to take their children out of the public schools.” He said this “like it or lump it” attitude will place a special burden on families who cannot afford to send their children to Christian schools.
No matter what the final outcome, most observers agree these cases have initiated public discussion of the inadequate treatment many textbooks give to the role of religion in society. “Educators and textbook publishers are saying, ‘There is substance to what these people are saying,’ and books are being upgraded,” said the National Legal Foundation’s Skolrood. Indeed, several recent reports, including one issued by People for the American Way, have called for more extensive coverage of religion in public school textbooks.
By Kim A. Lawton.
