The panel on religious exemptions from the Chicago-Kent Law Review symposium in which I participated with Stephanie Barclay and Laura Underkuffler is now available on YouTube. Thanks again to the organizers for inviting me. The symposium will appear in print later this year. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the appearance of the Justice Souter bobblehead at 29:05!
New Video on Cantwell v. Connecticut
Happy to announce that the latest episode in our animated video series, “Landmark Cases in Religious Freedom,” is now available on our YouTube channel. This episode covers Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), in which a Jehovah’s Witness was convicted of inciting a breach of the peace after playing an anti-Catholic phonograph record in a Catholic neighborhood. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Cantwell’s conviction was unconstitutional, establishing for the first time that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause applies to state laws through the Fourteenth Amendment. The case demonstrates how the Constitution protects offensive religious speech absent physical threats or an imminent danger to public order. This precedent remains crucial in today’s debates about religious “hate speech” and the balance between free expression and public safety. Take a look!
Berner on Educational Pluralism
I’m late getting to this, but I did want to note Ashley Rogers Berner’s most recent book on educational pluralism, Educational Pluralism and Democracy: How to Handle Indoctrination, Promote Exposure, and Rebuild America’s Schools (Harvard). Ashley, a professor of education at Johns Hopkins, is a longtime friend of the Mattone Center who participated in our Tradition Project several years ago. She has written a great deal about how different perspectives, including religious, can benefit K-12 education, and is always worth reading. Here’s the description of the book from the publisher:
In Educational Pluralism and Democracy, education policy expert Ashley Rogers Berner envisions a K–12 education system that serves both the individual and the common good. Calling for education reform that will enable US public schools to fulfill the longstanding promise of American education, Berner proposes a radical reimagining of both the structure and content of US public school systems. She urges policymakers to embrace educational pluralism, an internationally common model in which the government funds diverse types of schools that deliver more universal content.
Providing an incisive assessment of democratic education throughout the world, Berner argues that educational pluralism can build students’ exposure to diverse viewpoints and shared knowledge within distinctive school communities. She shows how pluralism steers a middle path that enables equitable access, promotes academic excellence, and avoids the zero-sum games that characterize US education policy. Pluralism, she observes, will ultimately serve democracy by defusing polarization and increasing social mobility, political tolerance, and civic engagement.
In this thought-provoking proposal, Berner lays out a roadmap for big-picture reform, expertly delineating the mechanisms through which educational norms can change. A practical conclusion describes concrete moves that advocates can pursue to garner support and advance new legislation.