School, in many neighborhoods, is more than just a place of study. It's a social gathering place. A town center. The best place for like-minded children to meet, make friends and share interests.
For insurance reasons, if a group of students want to create a common-interest club of some type, and they need to meet on campus (for lack of better facilities, for lack of parental trust in other facilities, for lack of easy access to other facilities), then the school must require adult, often teacher, supervision. This is also common sense. The school's policy on what groups can form and meet should be facially neutral. That means, the nature of the group should be of secondary concern to the school. So long as it is not an illegal activity (such as a pot-smoking club!), then the school should allow it. To not allow an religious group to form on campus under the above circumstances is an infringement of freedom of religion rights. The school would set up unreasonable barriers to an otherwise permissible assembly (we also have freedom of assembly rights). If the policy is facially neutral, meaning the secular humanists could also form a club, or the wiccans, then there is no establishment problem. H. -----Original Message----- From: Beth Fleischer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 9:04 PM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: Enron executive commits suicide (Church and State) Except, because the teacher sanctioned it the school is also sanctioning it via their employee - the teacher is acting as a teacher not as a citizen if they are on school property leading kids in prayer. Why couldn't the kids just get together and pray without making it a school function (which is what they obviously wanted to do?)? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick McClure" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Community" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 12:43 PM Subject: Re: Enron executive commits suicide (Church and State) > I know, but the only way the kids could hold the meeting at the school was > with a teacher there. And because there was a teacher there they couldn't > hold the meetings. > > It was not an official part of school, they just wanted to hold their > meetings there. > > The schools didn't provide the teacher, the students asked the teacher if > they would sanction it. > > At 12:24 PM 1/26/2002 -0900, you wrote: > >Thats a group sanctioned by the school that involves religion. Can the > >students who are satan worshippers also have a group? What obligation do > >the schools have to provide a teacher for whatever religious group the kids > >want? > > > >See, the waters get muddy because of this. > > > >Those students in lexington were absolutely allowed to pray in school, but > >they cannot start a religious official school group; unless they go to a > >non-private school. > > ______________________________________________________________________ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
