Richard Dougherty
-----Original Message-----
From: "Richard James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent 4/4/2007 11:30:11 AM
To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Subject: (no subject) Clergy at career days
Interesting responses, thanks.
In this case, the situation was much more of a forum, with an open invitation sent home with all students asking for parent volunteers willing to come in and talk about their careers. In fact, I was responding to a second appeal for speakers sent out from the class which was lamenting the limited participation from parents. I’m interested to know in this case what informs the differentiation between invited guests and forum. However, Doug Laycock’s point is applicable, since the presentations were going to be made to the class in general by individual presenters.
It seems reasonable enough that the teacher’s right to control guests is not subject to much challenge, but I had emphasized to the volunteer and the teacher that the minister wasn’t going to engage in any proselytizing, but was going to discuss the functional aspects of her job. I suppose that this might be a legitimate concern for a teacher due to the awkwardness and controversy that having a holy roller come in and preach might engender, but I didn’t receive any suggestion that this had been something that had any precedent. Finally, I suppose, is there a question of what free speech rights were violated at all, since the speech in question is some steps removed from the subject of the rights? The case in Peck is clearer in this sense because the school restricted the direct speech of a student because of religious content, despite the fact that the speech was expressed within the school’s pedagogic purpose. Here, the speech may not be speech and is connected to the pedagogical purpose more tenuously.
Of course, as a non-lawyer, I think that what the school has done is dumb, mostly.
Richard James
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