Seattle Press on Line - A Mixed Bag of Court Rulings: Privacy and Religion in the Classroom

Teacher Ted

A Mixed Bag of Court Rulings: Privacy and Religion in the Classroom

By Ted Lockery

Jul 04, 2002 -- School may be out for the summer but it is far from being out of the woods when it comes to maintaining the separation of Church and State and protecting students' privacy rights with regard to random drug testing.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently, in its typical 5-4 conservative hegemony, that public money can be used to pay for tuition at religious schools, opening the door even further for school vouchers to erode First Amendment Church-State separation. The court included the bogus caveat that such siphoning of public funds is permissible as long as those opting out of public schools are offered secular alternatives as well, ignoring the reality that 96.6 percent of publicly subsidized tuition currently goes to religious schools.

The court also ruled in favor of random drug tests of middle and high school students participating in extracurricular activities. The decision overturned a lower court's determination that such expanded drug testing practices were unconstitutional because they unreasonably violated students' Fourth Amendment right protecting against "unreasonable searches and seizures."

The usual suspects sided with Bush Administration lawyers who went as far as arguing that it would be reasonable for school districts to administer random drug tests to all public school students, placing state control in the name of "safety" over personal control of one's privacy.

Together, these rulings dismantle civic control of education--essentially subcontracting with anti-democratic (private) and religious institutions--while emboldening state control over individuals. They send yet another message to students and civic-minded individuals that, in the new era of Homeland Security, those in power are deconstructing our most democratic institution-education--while imposing flagrant, unreasonable restrictions on our constitutional rights to privacy and personal freedom.

What will a generation of students raised under such abandonment of civic responsibility, and under such heinous violations of one's privacy, allow the government to do next?

The Seattle School District, to its credit, does not currently conduct random drug tests of its students.

"[The ruling] just happened," says Bill Southern, the District's director of public affairs, "so there will certainly be discussion with the Board. Right now we do not have a random drug testing policy."

So far, so good at home. But local defenders of the First and Fourth Amendments need to be vigilant and need to contribute to the dialogue around potential policy decisions in coming months.

Not all recent court rulings on educational matters, though, have been such detriments to American public education. One in particular--the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance--offers a breath of sanity in an otherwise hypocritical legal and cultural interpretation of the Establishment Clause. The ruling (already put on hold by the weight of conservative backlash) implicates the unconstitutionality of forcing students to say the phrase "One Nation, Under God" in requisite classroom recitations of the Pledge.

How difficult is it for people to come to terms with the fact that official governmental references to deities, i.e. printing "In God We Trust" on our currency, using taxpayer money to pay for congressional chaplains, and requiring public school students to pledge their allegiance to a state "under God" violate the First Amendment's Establishment clause.

For the state to maintain neutrality with regard to religion means to be neither for nor against religious practice or belief in God--period--without exception. Anything short of such governmental neutrality toward religion would constitute tacit, if not explicit, endorsement of religious practice, making it unconstitutional.

Even if the Ninth Circuit decision on the Pledge of Allegiance were to fail in an appeal, as it is likely to do, it is heartening to know that there are justices and federal courts who are capable of ruling in favor of what is truly in the best interest of public schools and their students.

The Seattle School Board can be reached at 252-0040.

Ted Lockery teaches at Nathan Hale High School. He can be reached by e-mail at teacherted@seattlepress.com.

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Chris Barker	Jul 09, 2002	Auburn	System Engineer
Ted is missing some crucial facts. Read the religion clause of the first amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Notice how separation of church and state is not mentioned. It’s fascinating to read the Founding Fathers’ own discussion of why they worded it that way. Check it out. Ted implies that we used to have separation, but that it is being eroded. This is totally backwards. In the 1860’s the House Judiciary Committee issued a statement saying that this had always been a Christian nation, and always would be. In the 1950’s the state of Texas was still issuing a textbook teaching public school children about the Bible. Understand this historical fact: the campaign is to remove Christianity from public view, not to prevent its insertion into a religion-free environment. Minors are not directly protected by the Bill of Rights. Misunderstanding this fact leads to all sorts of foolishness. A child’s rights are derived from his parents’ rights. To get the school drug testing issue in perspective, you have to look at it from the position that the school is “in loco parentis,” acting for the parents. The parents have the rights, not the children. Further, Ted hangs his argument on privacy rights. Privacy rights, like “Separation of Church and State,” are not mentioned in the Bill of Rights. The US Supreme Court invented them because they needed a way to justify abortion. Ted says, “How difficult is it for people to come to terms with the fact that official governmental references to deities …. violate the First Amendment's Establishment clause.” This is difficult only if you look at that clause in a historical vacuum. It was written by real people who had specific reasons for writing it, and for wording it the way they did. You need to go find out who they were, and what kind of country they intended to build. If you want the U.S. to continue as a viable nation, we may need to continue with their plan, even if it means returning to our claim of being a Christian nation. Facts matter. Go get yourself some. Chris Barker Auburn WA