Master of the Content
A judge in Idaho recently ruled that a charter school could not use the Bible in class. But the case is about much more than that.
As the recent controversy over the work of the social studies textbook selection committee in Texas makes plain, the issue isn’t just textbooks—as my own students point out, they never really read their textbooks anyway. The real issue is much larger and it’s twofold– maybe threefold. First, the recognition of the role of religion—specifically, the Christian religion—in America’s founding and continuing tradition. Second, the proper way that children should be educated for citizenship. And,third, in the phrase of the Idaho judge, the question of who is the “master of the content” of the public school curriculum.
Here’s the Idaho case.
Isaac Moffet, a self-avowed religious man, started a charter school. He didn’t like the the atheistic and progressive ideas of education that he was expected to learn when preparing to be a teacher (think John Dewey) and decided to found Nampa Classical Academy (NCA), a school with conservative values. The school, he said, would teach the “good of America, the good of Western civilization.”
Last year Idaho’s Public Charter School Commission decided that NCA could not use the Bible and other religious texts in the classroom, prompting NCA to file a lawsuit. This week, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that the Commission had not violated the rights of Nampa and that, in fact, it was upholding the Idaho state constitution.
David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund represented the school and says Judge Lodge got it all wrong. According to the Idaho Press-Tribune, Cortman said:
“(T)he court’s opinion requiring the removal of religious books to comply with the so-called separation of church and state conflicts with the United States Supreme Court’s pronouncement that ‘the Bible may constitutionally be used in an appropriate study of history, civilization, ethics, comparative religion, or the like.’
On the other hand, Joseph Conn at The Wall of Separation — the official blog of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State– is delighted with the ruling. State officials, he says, were right to be “wary” of Moffett’s “right-wing religious bent.” But, fortunately, Judge Lodge, he says, got it exactly right. Conn cites as evidence this from the Idaho constitution:
Article IX, Section 9 reads in part, “No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools, nor shall any distinction or classification of pupils be made on account of race or color. No books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools established under the provisions of this article, nor shall any teacher or any district receive any of the public school moneys in which the schools have not been taught in accordance with the provisions of this article.”
Conn made it personal with David Cortman, who had represented the school:
Well, here’s some news, David. The “so-called” separation of church and state is still the law of the land, and with folks like you and your plaintiffs on the prowl, a lot of us are deeply grateful for that fact.
But is it the law of the land? Cortman argues convincingly that it’s not. First, he notes that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Bible may constitutionally be used in appropriate ways in schools. (See Stone vs. Graham, 1980.)
Then he offers as evidence the same Idaho constitution that Conn cited and that Judge Lodge said he based his ruling on:
The language in the actual constitution nowhere states that “no religious documents” may be used in the schools. That is the language used in the state’s newly created prohibition, but it’s not in the language of the state constitution, which states, “No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools” and “[n]o books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used….If AU [Americans United] had bothered to read the records of Idaho’s constitutional convention, they would know that the founders were not prohibiting the use of the Bible or any other religious text. In fact, the author of this very section of the state constitution specifically stated that the language would not prohibit the use of the Bible in public schools.
Then Conn follows the logic of the ruling:
Proof that the state and AU are (conveniently) not getting this right is the fact that, if they were consistent, they would also need to argue that the state constitution forbids reading the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact, and the Federalist Papers in school. After all, the language does say that “[n]o books, papers, tracts or documents of a political [emphasis added], sectarian or denominational character shall be used….”
Cortman points out that the ruling doesn’t apply just to K-12 schools, the ban applies to all public schools, including colleges.
Of course, as Cortman notes, many of the documents that would seem to banned by this understanding of the Idaho constitution, will in fact be taught. No one really expects that students will be prevented from reading and studying Washington’s Farewell Address or Lincoln’s Second Inaugural or Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” [We could pause here to wonder if-- and hope that-- kids are being taught these documents, but let's save that for another day.]
Cortman’s point is that someone will get to decide which of these documents are deemed religious. The question is: Who should that someone be?
