|
Forgive me for posting
and running, but I cannot let this pass and I do not have time to marshal my
facts. I have done religious issues in the public schools for nearly 25
years. The ACLU has not been a consistent defender of student bible clubs
(indeed the opposite is more accurate) or of any of the other claims made in the
post below. An ACLU affiliate may have occasionally filed
an amicus in support of students' religious _expression_ in public schools, but it
has not been a consistent defender of religious _expression_ in public
schools.
As Jim Henderson
correctly stated, the ACLU had a hand in originally creating the problem of
school districts taking an overly restrictive approach and censoring students'
religious speech, which became the incentive for the Equal Access Act in
1984, which the ACLU opposed until it realized its passage was inevitable about
an hour before the Act passed the Senate, at which point it went
"neutral". In the 1980s, the ACLU affiliates would
often intimidate school districts into adopting policies that were
restrictive of students' religious speech.
In writing this, in no
way am I casting aspersions on Mr.. Brayton. I believe he probably is
conveying information that he has read and believes to be true;
however, that information is not a true picture of the ACLU's
legal activities on religious _expression_ in the public schools in the 1980s
and 1990s. Again, there may be exceptions to what the ACLU's overall trend
has been, but they are exceptions, not the rule. I sincerely wish the ACLU
had been a defender of religious speech in the public schools, but it was
not.
Kim
Colby From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Brayton Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 1:36 PM To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: FYI: An Interesting "See You at the Pole" Case Except that the ACLU has been very
consistent in defending the free speech and free exercise rights of students,
including events like See You At The Pole, the right to organize student bible
clubs, the rights of students to hand out religious literature to their
classmates, wear religious clothing, and choose religious songs or subjects for
reports, and so forth. In many of the famous cases where it is claimed that
schools are being hostile to religion, like the Lamb's Chapel case or the case
in Massachusetts where the kids were suspended for handing out candy canes with
a religious message attached, the ACLU was on the right side.
Ed Brayton
|
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
