Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:01:12 -0800

I agree with Doug here; NYC used to (may still) close for Jewish high holidays because there were not enough teachers in the classrooms.  A practical solution; but the hard problem is when students want to take many many days off from school for holidays.  I would oppose a strict number of days rule and you can be expelled; I was involved in a successful  fight with the Tulsa School Board to change their rule to exclude religous holidays from strict rule that could have led to students being held back for too many missed days.  However no one in Tulsa was arguing for a religous exemption for 8 days in a row out of town (which is 5 or 6 school days in a row).   Such a student might have trouble passing a class if there were other missed days; does the student then make some claim of religious discrimination because of the work missed during those 8 days?  

And, is there an entanglement issues here?  Many schools do have huge problems with students missing class; hence they have moved to these strict rules.  Does the school have a right to ask for "proof" of the need to miss 8 dyas in a row?  Proof of a real religous need?

Douglas Laycock wrote:
     This time I agree with Michael Newsom.  The typical Christian observer gets 52 Sundays a year (or 36 or so in the school year).  He always gets Easter.  He not only gets Christmas day; he gets a week and often two weeks around Christmas day.  All this by virtue of the whole calender and work schedule of government and business  being  designed to meet his needs.  And with Saturdays as the second most widely observed day off, we do a decent job -- but not as good -- for observant Jews and other Sabbatarians as well.  The calender is not a neutral rule.
 
    The solution is not to change all this.  The solution is to give observers of each religion their holy days off.  When to close the school or close the office is just a prudential question -- when so many people would be taking off that it makes more sense to close down than to stay open and make individualized exceptions.
 
 
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Newsom Michael
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 10:17 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Student reprimanded for religious absences

But are the rules neutral?  Public schools typically accommodate majoritarian religious holidays and holy days – both Christian and Jewish (leaving aside certain Christian sects, as in the case under discussion and leaving aside, perhaps, some Jewish sects) but do not accommodate many, if not all, non-majoritarian religious holidays and holy days.

 

In our increasingly pluralistic society, accommodation of all holidays and holy days would present serious administrative and fiscal problems.  But there is no getting around the fact of a bias in favor of “typical” Christian and Jewish holidays and holy days, and there is something fundamentally unfair about that bias as it plays itself out in the real world, unless, of course, we adopt Scalia’s dismissive view of religious minorities in Smith.     

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jamar Steve
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2004 8:09 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Student reprimanded for religious absences

 

But then where does the court draw the line? 8 days? 14? 20? What is the least restrictive alternative to requiring attendance? They aren't home schooling-- they are asking to be exempted from truly generally applicable neutral rules.

 

Steve

 

On Tuesday, November 23, 2004, at 06:57 PM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:

 

    I'm puzzled by how this argument would be reconciled with traditional strict scrutiny analysis, which is what the Indiana Constitution seems to call for.  Is it really the case that expelling students for missing 8 days of school is *necessary* to accomplish the compelling state interest in providing an adequate education to students?  The case for accommodation here seems much stronger than, say, in Wisconsin v. Yoder (though I realize that there are distinctions between the two cases).

 

    Or is the argument that strict scrutiny should not apply in K-12 education?

 

    Eugene

 

--

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