Dahlia Lithwick in Slate on current released-time
programs in Virginia and elsewhere: http://slate.msn.com/id/2113611/.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
recently upheld a New York released time program, on the authority of
Zorach, even though the children remaining in the classroom were in
effect relegated to thimb-twiddling: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/2nd/039292p.pdf.
Zorach itself aside, does anyone on the
list think that these programs are constitutional, and/or that they would
survive scrutiny under the Court's more modern,
Amos/Caldor/Texas Monthly/Kiryas Joel
accommodation doctrine? I assume that in most such cases, the released
time (i) does not alleivate any significant government-imposed
burden on religious exercise, and (ii) does impose not-trivial burdens on other private parties
(namely, the minority of students being left behind with nothing much
(substantively) to do other than to await the return of the religious
majority). In such cases, are the programs constitutionally
defensible?
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