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How Christianity affects society through education
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Comprehensive Education Statute
The adoption of a comprehensive education statue that would directly impact the status of Christian schools would be considered unconstitutional. The new statute would probably not pass the Lemon Test. The statute must have a secular legislative purpose, have a primary effect that does not advance nor inhibit religion or interfere with religion (LaMorte, 2012, p.32). As stated the secular purpose is not noted in the discussion. All public schools are accredited or approved by the Department of Education. Private schools have a separate approval process.
Yoder vs. Wisconsin has little similarity to this case. Children from Amish families that resided in New Glarus, Wisconsin refused to attend school because of their family’s religious beliefs. The local school district and state Board of education believed that the students were truant and in violation of the states compulsory attendance law. The Supreme Court decided that the Yoder children did not have to attend public high school. The court determined that the children would not be a burden to society.
New Life Baptist Church Academy vs. Town of East Long Meadow determined that a locality could determine if a private school should be approved. The Supreme Court determined that it was the responsibility of the state to determine that all student citizens receive an “adequate education” (LaMorte, 2012, p.30). However, the approval process was determined unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment- Establishment Clause.
Bible Club Meetings
Public schools offer many types of student clubs and extracurricular activities. Student interest drive the formation of different activities. The school system should permit the forma...
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...Court found that the theory of evolution was not a religious topic but a scientific theory. The Supreme Court when on to assert that a school district may govern a teacher’s right to free speech to assure that the teacher does not violate the First Amendment – Establishment Clause.
LeVake v. Independent School District (2002) ruled against Mr. LeVake. Mr. Rodney LeVake taught high school math and science for many years until he was required to teach high school biology. The high school biology curriculum required that students be taught the theory of evolution. LeVake felt it important to discuss the problems and inconsistencies of the theory of evolution while teaching the topic. He was moved back to teach ninth grade science. LeVake felt that his First Amendment rights had been violated. The Supreme Court refused to hear LeVake’s case in 2001 and again in 2004.
Abington v. Schempp was an important case regarding the establishment of religion in American schools. Until the late twentieth century, most children were sent to schools which had some sort of religious instruction in their day. The schools taught the morals, values, and beliefs of Christianity in addition to their everyday curriculum. However, as some people began to drift away from Christianity, parents believed this was not fair to the kids and justifiable by the government. They thought public schools should not be affiliated with religion to ensure the freedom of all of the families who send students there. Such is the situation with the 1963 Supreme Court case Abington v. Schempp.
Therefore, the respondents took the case to court (Island Trees…). The holding, the court’s decision, by a 5-4 vote, was “The First Amendment limits the power of local or school boards to remove library books from junior high schools and high schools” (Island Trees…). The court also said that the Board of Education “should not intervene in ‘the daily operations of school systems’ unless ‘basic constitutional values’ were ‘sharply implicate[d]”(qtd. in Board of Education, Island). The dissent consisted of Burger, Powell, Rehnquist, and O’Connor; the concurrence consisted of Blackmun and White (Island Trees…).
Board of Education (1954) which was a case of racial segregation of children that were discriminated against in public schools that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Next, Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools (1992) the Court decided that monetary damages of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which demonstrated sexual harassment and abuse by a teacher (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015b). Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999) held a lawsuit under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that was against sexual harassment, denying a student of equal opportunity the school provided and subjecting them to facing discrimination in an elementary environment (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015a).
Board of Education was a United States Supreme Court case in 1954 that the court declared state laws to establish separate public schools for black segregated public schools to be unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was filed against the Topeka, Kansas school board by plaintiff Oliver Brown, parent of one of the children that access was denied to Topeka’s none colored schools. Brown claimed that Topeka 's racial segregation violated the Constitution 's Equal Protection Clause because, the city 's black and white schools were not equal to each other. However, the court dismissed and claimed and clarified that segregated public schools were "substantially" equal enough to be constitutional under the Plessy doctrine. After hearing what the court had said to Brown he decided to appeal the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Earl Warren stepped in the court spoke in an unanimous decision written by Warren himself stating that, racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Also congress noticed that the Amendment did not prohibit integration and that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal education to both black and white students. Since the supreme court noticed this issue they had to focus on racial equality and galvanized and developed civil
The famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka can be used to illustrate when judicial review should be implemented to aid one or a faction in actions that are unconstitutional. In the town of Topeka, Kansas a black third-grader was forced to walk one mile through a switchyard in order to get to her black elementary school, although a white elementary school was only a few blocks away. Her parents attempted to enroll her into the white school but were repeatedly denied. The Brown v. Board of Education case was tried on behalf of the black minority that was the target of racial segregation in public schools.
Firstly, in the town of Hillsboro teaching the theory of evolution to students was strictly against the law. Bert Cates was in opposition to this idea and, he believed that every student had the right to know about the Origin of species. Teaching the theory of evolution was against the law because it contradicted the teachings
In cases having to do with constitutionality, the issue of the separation of church and state arises with marked frequency. This battle, which has raged since the nation?s founding, touches the very heart of the United States public, and pits two of the country's most important influences of public opinion against one another. Although some material containing religious content has found its way into many of the nation's public schools, its inclusion stems from its contextual and historical importance, which is heavily supported by material evidence and documentation. It often results from a teacher?s own decision, rather than from a decision handed down from above by a higher power. The proposal of the Dover Area School District to include instruction of intelligent design in biology classes violates the United States Constitution by promoting an excessive religious presence in public schools.
simple terms: either Darwin or the Bible was true.” (265) The road to the trial began when Tennessee passed the Butler Act in 1925 banning the teaching of evolution in secondary schools. It was only a matter of time before a young biology teacher, John T. Scopes, prompted by the ACLU, tested the law. Spectators and newspapermen came from all over to witness whether science or religion would win the day. Yet, below all the hype, the trial had a deeper meaning.
The Arkansas Act 590 is an act that requires balanced treatment of creation-science and evolution-science in public schools, in order to protect academic freedom by providing the student a choice. (State of Arkansas 1981). If one was to look deeper into the Arkansas Act, they would find that not only was it set to protect academic freedom, but also established to guarantee freedom of belief and speech, as well as to prevent the establishment of religion. During a legal case, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the Act by trying to define the status of creation-science. They did not agree that creation-science was a genuine science. Due to this belief, they seeked to remove the teaching of creation-science from public schools, and label it not as a science.
What is religion? Each person’s definition of religion is different. Each person’s faith is different. This is a question that has been asked for centuries, and regardless of the answer given there is no right or wrong answer. Religion can be defined as a group of people who have shared beliefs who feel their life has purpose or meaning. This feeling or belief that their life has meaning can come from outside of themselves, as well as within. Taking this one step further, these shared beliefs put into action in the form of worship, can be easily identified because they happen regularly. It can be said the Primal religions were in fact not religions. Some may argue Confucianism is not a religion. Others may say Taoism is not a religion. However, one argument can be made. All three of these “religions” share “features.” Huston Smith, author of World’s Religions, says “six features of religion appear so regularly as to suggest that their seeds are in the human makeup.” These six features discussed in World’s Religions are as follows: authority, ritual, explanation, tradition, grace, and mystery (World’s, Page 67). First is authority, Smith argues religion is so complex that people will need assistance or guidance from those held in a higher light, or of a higher authority. Next is ritual, which can be happy (a wedding) or sad (a funeral), rituals are shared between people of the same religion in many forms as a sign of common beliefs. Following rituals, some explanation is required. Many of a religion’s followers ask for explanations, some ask, “What is my purpose in life?” Others may ask, “Who is God?” Depending on one’s religion, the questions or
In the early 1950's, racial segregation was widely accepted across the nation. It was believed that this would create a better learning atmosphere for white students. Although all school districts across cities and states were supposed to be equal, facilities, teachers, and school conditions were far superior in white schools than black schools. This system was feebly challenged until 1951. In Topeka, Kansas, Oliver Brown attempted to enroll his third-grade daughter to an all white school. Oliver's daughter had to walk more than a mile to her all black school, while the white school was merely seven blocks from their home. Although denied enrollment, Brown appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In the precedent-setting trial of Brown vs. the Board of Education, Chief Justice Earl Warren declared that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Oliver Brown -- no longer would segregation be permitted.
In her article “Beyond the Wall of Separation: Church-State in Public Schools”, Martha McCarthy, a Chancellor Professor and chair of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, makes it clear that her aim is to inform educators of the legal history and constitutional precedents of the Establishment clause and Free speech Clause of the First Amendment with an attached understanding of how educators should implement these findings. She summarizes and analyzes key Supreme Court rulings over the course of the 20th century as they pertain to religious expression in public schools. She clarifies the usage of both the Establishment Clause and the Free Speech Clause, including recent changes in trends that have been noted in the Supreme Court during the last decade. From the late 1940’s to the 1990’s most Supreme court rulings focused on the Establishment Clause to the increasing exclusion of the Free Speech Clause such that students were increasingly limited in the ways they were allowed to express themselves in school even in a private manner. In recent years, however, it has been noted that forcing students to suppress their religious expression is itself a religious statement and one that denies the role of religion in people’s lives. McCarthy notes that the public schools must take a neutral stand in relation to religion such that they do not defend or deny its role in people’s lives, either directly or indirectly.
Brown versus the Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas was perhaps the most renowned cases of its time. The thirteen plaintiffs on behalf on their children filed a class action lawsuit against the district in order for it to reverse its policy of racial segregation. One named plaintiff, Oliver L. Brown, an admired African American member of his community, complained that his young daughter had to walk six blocks to the bus stop to attend her all black school, while the white school was closer. After the victory, The Board of Edu...
In 1962 the Supreme Court outlawed school-mandated prayer in public schools, ruling that it was unconstitutional ("School Prayer”). The next year, it banned non compulsory religious readings. Over the next 30 years, the Court would continue to protect American students from the establishment of religion in public schools while protecting the equality of all beliefs. But in 2000 when Atheist Dr. Michael Newdow filed against the Broward County school board for the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, stating that it encroached on his daughter’s right to be free from religious coercion from the government, local courts decided to deny to view the case. Newdow appealed and the case eventually got to the Supreme Court who, instead of serving its intended purpose
Typically there are “four basic types of student clubs: academic, special interest, special project or issue, sports”(North). Students who participate in academic clubs gain knowledge outside of the classroom that applies later on in the class. Students become involved based upon a common interest and hope to be with other students who share the same interests are in the special interest focus club. A third type of a student club is very similar to the special interest focus. “These clubs (special project or issue focus) provide students with expanded leadership experiences and involvement in the community. The final type of club is a sports club”(North).