Dear Marty, I think we can all unite in support of (and I'd also "welcome" a meaningful commitment to enhancing) the "3 Rs" in our public schools. (I'm pretty confident that those R's are better promoted, generally speaking, in religious schools, but I realize that's a debate for another day.)
In any event, I'm not sure why the question is whether or not the fourth "R" is "integral" to the "public schools' mission" (I'm not sure we really know what the public school's mission is and, again, I suspect that whatever it is is at least as well achieved in religious schools as in public schools.) Instead, I'd ask "does it 'establish religion' for a public school to allow two credits for religious education courses taken pursuant to a release-time statute, when those courses are approved by an accredited private school and when the state is not involved in any way in the religious instruction?" I think the answer to this latter question, both doctrinally and (more important) morally and historically, should be "no." There's no "entanglement," "endorsement", "coercion", etc., here. We allow credits for all kinds of courses with debatable connection to the "3-Rs," let alone the "public schools' mission". It seems to me that -- again, given that the government is not pushing the release-time option, and is not involved in religious instruction -- it is fine for the political community to, in this very small way, which does not subtract meaningfully from the few affected students' "secular" course of study and which imposes burdens on no one, accommodate the fact that, for many, religious education is education and perhaps acknowledge the possibility that a child's healthy development is advanced as much by (non-state-provided) religious education as by, say, for-credit classes in pottery, or P.E., or high-school sociology. I'll quit being a bore now, and sign off on this thread, but am always happy to chat offline, if anyone wants to. All the best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law & Associate Dean Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, IN 46556-0780 574-631-6981 (office) 574-631-4197 (fax) ________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman [lederman.ma...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:05 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Cc: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Providing public school credits for release-time religious classes Unless, like Niemeyer, you think that four Rs, not three, are "integral" to the public school mission. Sent from my iPhone On Jun 30, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Marci Hamilton <hamilto...@aol.com<mailto:hamilto...@aol.com>> wrote: Marty is undoubtedly correct under current doctrine. The release time program exists I assume to avoid Establishment Cl problems. To now argue entanglement is a problem is a constitutional sleight of hand to avoid a violation. The entanglement argument is particularly weak given the description of the program I also think the entanglement argument is specious given that public and private schools set requirements and criteria to accept credit from other schools all the time. A school does not need to nor does it normally blindly accept courses and/or credits from other schools, private or public. I am at a loss to understand how this decision is salutary from an academic perspective. Sounds to me like it is potentially watering down the 3Rs.... Marci On Jun 30, 2012, at 11:11 AM, Marty Lederman <<mailto:lederman.ma...@gmail.com>lederman.ma...@gmail.com<mailto:lederman.ma...@gmail.com>> wrote: I should add that, wholly apart from whether the particular Spartanburg Bible School class was in any way, as Rick suggests, of some secular educational value (which was, I repeat, not the basis for the court's holding), the South Carolina statute at issue expressly provides that "[a] school district board of trustees may award high school students no more than two elective Carnegie units for the completion of released time classes in religious instruction." That is to say, the credits are specifically and unequivocally being awarded for the "religious instruction" as such. On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Marty Lederman <<mailto:lederman.ma...@gmail.com>lederman.ma...@gmail.com<mailto:lederman.ma...@gmail.com>> wrote: Rick, The statute says that the school district must use "secular criteria" to determine whether the release time education qualifies for credits, but those criteria have nothing to do with fulfillment of any of the secular educational objectives of the school (they include the number of hours of instruction; a syllabus that reflects course requirements; a "method of assessment" used by the religious school teachers"; and whether the teachers are certified). The School District here, for admirable nonentanglement reasons, "entered into an arrangement with Oakbrook Preparatory School, an accredited private Christian school, by which Spartanburg Bible School could submit its grades through Oakbrook to Spartanburg High School. Under the arrangement, Oakbrook agreed to review and monitor Spar- tanburg Bible School’s curriculum, its teacher qualifications, and educational objectives, and to award course credit and grades given by the Bible School before transferring them to Spartanburg High School. In carrying out the arrangement, Oakbrook reviewed syllabi, spoke with instructors, suggested minor curricular adjustments, and satisfied itself that the Spar- tanburg Bible School course was academically rigorous." To my mind, this delegation raises a serious Larkin problem. But that aside, the fact that the accredited school is an intermediary that "transfers" the grades based on an assessment that the religious course was "academically rigorous" does not cure the problem, which is that this education is designed to be religious in nature, and not to advance any of the secular objectives of the public schools. You quote with apparent approval Judge Niemeyer's "governing principle" that "private religious education is an integral part of the American school system." But that stated "principle" is the problem, not a virtue. Providing families with the option of achieving the society's secular educational objectives at a private school of their choice, religious or secular, is a "governing principle" of the American school system. (And securing the freedom of families to provide or obtain a private religious education outside the American school system is surely a "governing principle" of our constitutional order (Meyer, Pierce, etc.).) But "religious education" as such not only is not an integral part of the American school system -- as a constitutional matter, it can't be part of that system at all. On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 10:29 AM, Rick Garnett <<mailto:rgarn...@nd.edu>rgarn...@nd.edu<mailto:rgarn...@nd.edu>> wrote: Dear Marty, In this case, if I am reading the opinion correctly, the credits in question are coming from "Oakbrook Preparatory School, an accredited private Christian school." In my view, the decision is "welcome" because -- as Marc says, below -- I think it would be the wrong approach to say that, when a student transfers from a non-state school to a state school, he or she may only receive "credit" for courses with the requisite "secular" content. As Judge Niemeyer wrote: Also important to our conclusion is the governing principle that private religious education is an integral part of the American school system. Indeed, States are constitutionally obligated to allow children and parents to choose whether to fulfill their compulsory education obligations by attending a secular public school or a religious private school. See Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters , 268 U.S. 510, 534-35 (1925). It would be strange and unfair to penalize such students when they attempt to transfer into the public school system by refusing to honor the grades they earned in their religious courses, potentially preventing them from graduating on schedule with their public school peers. Far from establishing a state religion, the acceptance of transfer credits (including religious credits) by public schools sensibly accommodates the "genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious." Zelman v. Simmons-Harris , 536 U.S. 639, 662 (2002) (upholding an Ohio voucher initiative for this reason). The court was careful to note that the school district had not encouraged students to participate or inappropriately endorsed religion. Like Marc, I can imagine some abuses, and hard cases, but this one does not seem (to me) to be one. Best, Rick Richard W. Garnett Professor of Law & Associate Dean Notre Dame Law School P.O. Box 780 Notre Dame, IN 46556-0780 574-631-6981<tel:574-631-6981> (office) 574-631-4197<tel:574-631-4197> (fax) ________________________________ From: <mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> [<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>] On Behalf Of Marc DeGirolami [<mailto:marc.degirol...@stjohns.edu>marc.degirol...@stjohns.edu<mailto:marc.degirol...@stjohns.edu>] Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 10:13 AM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Providing public school credits for release-time religious classes One conceivable difficulty is the entanglement problem. When a student transfers in to public school from a religious school, there may be several different sorts of courses that the student will have taken which may combine, in various degrees, “religious” and “secular” components. I’m not sure I agree with Marty that it is always the case that the transferred credits are awarded solely for purely secular courses. Segregating out the secular and religious components can be difficult. And getting the school district involved in determining which are purely secular, and which are mixed, and which are purely religious, might risk excessive entanglement. Having said that, I agree that awarding credits for, e.g., CCD class or equivalent education is problematic. Marc From: <mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> [mailto:<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu>] On Behalf Of Marty Lederman Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 9:58 AM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Providing public school credits for release-time religious classes <http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/111448.P.pdf>www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/111448.P.pdf<http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/111448.P.pdf> A South Carolina school district set up a Zorach-like release time program for religious instruction at an unaccedited religious school. Then it decided to give the participating students academic credit for their purely religious studies in the release-time program. The Fourth Circuit upholds this program, on the theory that it's no different from recognizing credits from a private, accredited religious school when a student transfers to the public school. But in that latter case (or in the related context of giving "credit" for home-schooling), the credits presumably are awarded based upon the showing or the presumption that they reflect the student's completion of the necessary secular curriculum. Here, the education in question is specifically religious in nature (that's the point, and there's no indication in the opinion of any secular content). That is to say, the credit is being offered for the religious education simplicitur. Is this holding defensible? On Mirror of Justice, Rick Garnett calls it "welcome," but it's not obvious to me why that might be so. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to <mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see <http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw> 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. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to <mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see <http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw> 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. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to <mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see <http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw> 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.
_______________________________________________ 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.
