ACLU to South Carolina Public Schools: We’re Watching

The Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog reports today that, as the new school year begins, the ACLU of South Carolina has sent a letter to public schools in the state reminding them of their constitutional duty to avoid promoting religion:

“It’s important that all students know that they’re going back to school to a place where they will be welcome no matter what they believe,” said Victoria Middleton, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, in a statement Monday. The group claims to have received numerous reports of religious freedom violations, including complaints that many South Carolina schools impose religion on students.

In response, South Carolina’s education superintendent accused the ACLU of trying to intimidate students from engaging in legitimate religious expression in public places. Sounds like litigation ahead.

 

“Common Sense, Not Discrimination”

That’s the verdict of the Student Judiciary at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which has reinstated the local chapter of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship as a campus student organization. Earlier this year, the Student Senate had revoked recognition because of Intervarsity’s requirement that leaders in the organization affirm traditional Christian beliefs, including beliefs about homosexuality. Last December, the chapter’s  treasurer, who is gay, told the university’s student newspaper that he had been pressured to resign because he would not sign a statement affirming the truth of Biblical passages, including passages condemning homosexual conduct. The Senate believed this episode showed that Intervarsity violated the university’s non-discrimination policy, but the Judiciary disagreed, arguing that one must distinguish between membership and leadership in a student organization. Intervarsity was open to all SUNY-Buffalo students, including gay students, the Judiciary explained; but  “it is common sense, not discrimination, for a religious group to want its leaders to agree with its core beliefs.” Similar disputes about the religious freedom of student groups have occurred recently at other American universities, including Vanderbilt, and of course, UC-Hastings Law School, the subject of the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in CLS v. MartinezMartinez held that an “all-comers” policy requiring student religious organizations to open their leadership to all students regardless of belief is constitutionally permissible. That’s not to say an all-comers policy is constitutionally required, however.

DeGroff on Parental Rights and Public Education

The article, Parental Rights and Public School Curricula: Revisiting Mozert after 20 years, by Professor Eric A. DeGroff of Regent University School of Law, has been reposted to SSRN.  Originally published in 2009, Prof. DeGroff’s article revisits the jurisprudence of balancing parents’ recognized right to direct their childrens’ education and upbringing under the Due Process and Free Exercise clauses against states’ interest in compelling school attendance and determining their own curricula.  See Mozert v. Hawkins County Bd. Educ., 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987).  See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972).  Detailing recent circuit inconsistency on the issue, DeGroff argues that courts should exercise heightened judicial scrutiny when state curricular requirements conflict with parental rights.

Please see the abstract after the jump. Read more