For relevant case law, see,eg, Bishop v. Aronov,926 F2d 1066(11th Cir 1991) and Lynch v. Indiana Staea,177 IND APP.176,378 NE2d 900(1978) and Edwards vs. U. of Penn, 156 F3d 488(3d Cir.1998). Marc Stern -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Levinson Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Re: Re: Do philosophy departments violate the Constitution?
Marty writes Well, it's not a matter of the teachers' "freedoms"; it's a question of what the state can "say," i.e., teach. A state teacher plainly may not present a religious account of the "true understanding of creation," but presumably a state teacher can, and often does, present a non-religious account of what the state believes to be the true understanding of creation. Sandy appears to view faculty classroom speech at a state university as the equivalent of a forum for private speech; but I don't think that is how the law treats it, either with respect to what the EC prohibits or with respect to what sorts of discrimination the Free Speech Clause permits. ________________________________________________ I have a little bit of trouble with the notion of ascribing to "the state" a belief in "the true understanding of creation." Perhaps I can make my point more clearly if I look to "the true understanding of the creation of the Constitution" rather than of the Universe. I assume that any of us, teaching a class on that topic, can teach that the Framers were simple Beardian (or neo-Beardian) rent seekers or, on the contrary, were selflessly striving to instantiate the conditions necessary for civic republicanism (even though both of these accounts cannot possibly be true and it would be incoherent to say that the state has a single understanding of the creation, which would require it, presumably, to fire one of us). But now let's assume that a third professor is a Mormon (call him Fred Gedickes!). It is my understanding--though I obviously stand subject to correction--that members of LDS believe that the Constitution was, in some sense, divinely inspired. If this is true, would it violate the Constitution sandy _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
