What Johnny can't read:

...Sending their children to public schools after a certain age, they believed, where the values the Yoders shunned were inculcated, violated their religion...

...The textbooks were full of ideas she believed the Bible had clearly spoken on, and denounced...

...Her case must be distinguished from the Yoders', however, on at least two points...

...In this larger sense public education will continue to be our classroom for "civility" in self-government...

...This supports the authority of the Hawkins County Board of Education to determine whether the Holt series of textbooks is "necessary" to meet its goal of providing a quality education...

...Judicial deference to the local control of school boards puts conflict and decision making closest to those who are most affected by it...

...The Sixth Circuit opinion means, Boggs went on, that "the democratic principle must prevail...

...If Yoder was Ms...

...First, while the Yoders did not want to have anything to do with public education after a certain age, nor did they accept its statutorily prescribed goals, the Mozert petitioners wanted the benefits of a public education, and accepted its statutorily prescribed goals, but wanted these benefits on their own terms...

...In West Virginia State Education v. Barnette (1943), the Court held that the State could not compel a student who objected on religious grounds to salute the flag and give the pledge of allegiance...

...Their method of involvement, however, challenges the concept of public education...

...Judge Hull proposed a partial home-schooling "opt-out" just for reading class...

...McCollum v. Board of Education, decided in 1947, which prohibits the use of public school facilities for religious instruction...

...The difference between "compulsion" and "being informed" distinguishes this case from Mozert, where the students were only being informed about a variety of ideas, not compelled to act them out or to believe in them (indeed, they were invited to criticize them in class discussion...

...But no one in the schools could learn how to handle controversial topics if everyone offended by them could be shuttled in and out of the classroom...

...The Justice feared that the Supreme Court could become a "super school board" to every public school in the country...

...This last option is important...

...That makes this case different, free exercise instead of establishment...

...The case was reversed, however, on appeal in the U.S...

...ERIC JORSTAD, formerly pastor of St...

...The sad irony of this case is that Frost and her COBS partners are doing, in one sense, what every teacher and school board member would love to see more of-they are closely involved with and deeply care about the education of their children...

...What lesson will be taught...

...Twice the Supreme Court has upheld free exercise rights in the public school context...

...The students are only being exposed to a variety of ideas, he reasoned...

...Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, on August 24,1987...

...They would study reading at home and be tested by the school for competency...

...What effect will this decision have on religion in the public schools...

...More cases will likely stalk through the courts, leaving teachers, school boards, and local voters looking over their shoulders...

...In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Supreme Court held that the State of Wisconsin could not compel the Yoders' children to attend high school...

...This was Vicki Frost's strongest case support at the highest level...

...This did not mean that the "Holt Readers" series of textbooks was banned from use in Hawkins County public schools...

...The Frosts are free to rally their community to seek change, either in the textbooks used (provided the new textbooks do not "establish" any religious beliefs and still provide quality education), or in the composition of the school board...

...Together they formed Citizens Organized for Better Schools (COBS) and tried to change the reading requirements...

...But the Hawkins County parents were not asking for a textbook ban, or for the government to change its actions toward everyone in the schools...

...The Yoders' Amish religion required their complete separation from the modern world...

...They are not merely made acquainted with the flag salute so that they may be informed as to what it is or even what it means...

...There the Court has emphasized the "wall of separation" between church and state, and the necessity of governmental "neutrality" between religions and between religion and non-religion...

...Judge Boggs, in his Sixth Circuit concurring opinion, noted the importance of this possibility for the parents: "Plaintiffs are, of course, free to work politically and by education to change the school curriculum, just as others worked and succeeded in making the changes to which plaintiffs object...

...Future plaintiffs' lawyers could well find inspiration for litigation in the fact that the Supreme Court did not roundly and explicitly deny the fundamentalists' claims in Mozert...

...The offended students are free to raise their objections in class discussions...

...A foundational case is Illinois exrel...

...They soon agreed: their children must not be forced to study these ideas upon which they believed the Bible has firmly spoken...

...Does such reasoning apply to Mozerf...

...But, as Justice Jackson wrote for the Court majority, "[W]e are dealing with a compulsion of students to declare a belief...

...The government can never promote or inhibit any particular religion or religious belief, or religion itself...

...The public school system is committed to the idea that controversy in the classroom is desirable in that it helps the students develop their own values...

...In Sherbert v. Verner, a seminal case decided in 1963, the Court ruled that a Seventh Day Adventist who had quit her job when it began to require her to work on Saturdays, her religious sabbath, could not be denied unemployment compensation...

...But here in her corner of Tennessee, in her own local public school, stories about Buddhism and Hinduism were taught, as were stories about eliminating the distinct roles of men and women...

...The board said that the children would have to go to reading class and read the regular textbooks like everyone else if they wanted to attend the public schools...

...The offended parents can run for the school board themselves, or propose to the electorate an alternative slate of candidates...

...Vicki Frost and her fellow believers in Hawkins County are not really being compelled, under First Amendment free exercise standards, to do anything contrary to their religious beliefs...

...The courts are clearly called to uphold the constitutional rights of public school students, but, as Justice Jackson wrote in his concurring opinion: Authorities list 256 separate and substantial religious bodies to exist in the continental United States...

...2) educate their children themselves at home, provided their children can go on to pass certain standardized tests proving minimal competence...

...They just didn't want their right to exercise their religion denied...

...School prayer, Bible reading, "released time" religious instruction, Creationism, and textbook banning are all establishment questions...

...This puts the decision back into the hands of the parents and the local community...

...Further, as the school board showed at the trial, a major goal of the reading class is to encourage the students to decide for themselves what they believe...

...The Court found that since the continued existence of the Amish as a religious community depended on this separation, the state could not compel them to go to school...

...The court also awarded the parents $50,000 compensation for having had to send their children to private schools while awaiting adjudication...

...If theologian Martin Marty is right, that American culture is becoming increasingly "tribal-ized" into "warring sects," we can expect more lawsuits like this one...

...The students have no right to not be exposed to ideas they find offensive in a public school curriculum...

...After their children were suspended, the parents filed a lawsuit against the public schools, alleging that their constitutional rights had been infringed under the First Amendment guarantee of the "free exercise" of religion...

...Shouldn' t the government have to accommodate their beliefs by letting the children opt out of reading class...

...Instead the children would attend all their classes except reading, from which they would be excused...

...The court wrote that the parents' case fell short of showing that the schools had unconstitutionally burdened the parents' and students' right to the free exercise of their religion...

...Each of them . . . has as good a right as this plaintiff to demand that the courts compel the schools to sift out of their teaching everything inconsistent with its doctrines...

...By a 3 to 0 vote, the appeals bench in Cincinnati reversed and ruled in favor of the school board...

...Judge Lively held that exposure to offensive textbooks in a public school classroom does not infringe upon the free exercise of religion...

...WHAT JOHNNY CANT READ PARENTS, TEXTBOOKS, & THE COURTS ERIC JORSTAD When Vicki Frost read the textbooks her children brought home from the local public school, she was appalled...

...unlike other cases where free exercise rights have been upheld, the students here are not being compelled to do anything (like salute the flag) or to affirm or deny any particular belief...

...He said that the children could not be required to read textbooks that offended them...

...thus the lower-court ruling stands...

...The precise question of this case has never been decided by the highest court-namely, how could public school board decisions about required textbooks infringe upon students' or parents' free exercise of religion under the First Amendment...

...the Yoders sought exemption from a state statute with misdemeanor sanctions (a fine between $5 and $50 and/or imprisonment for not more than three months...

...The Hawkins County School Board, however, stepped in and forbade this arrangement...

...The Mozert petitioners initiated a civil lawsuit...

...They already have three options under Tennessee laws: (1) send their children to private or church-based schools where instruction will not offend their religious beliefs...

...Although supporting the free exercise rights of the Yoders, the Court noted:' 'Our disposition of this case, however, in no way alters our recognition of the obvious fact that courts are not school boards or legislatures, and are ill-equipped to determine the 'necessity' of discrete aspects of a state's program of compulsory education...

...The threat to her children of a particular set of readers cannot compare to the threat the Yoders faced to their whole (religious) way of life...

...In Yoder itself the Supreme Court reiterated its judicial deference to the decisions of local school authorities...

...She wanted her children to grow up believing in God, and living the way the Bible says they ought to live...

...Courts cannot interfere with the schools every time someone reads something they think is offensive...

...A long line of free exercise cases in the Supreme Court would seem to have supported the claims of the parents...

...Second, Yoder was a case concerning compulsory attendance in the Wisconsin public schools...

...She started to wonder: why should her children have to be exposed to these false ideas...

...Judge Hull agreed...

...These include very recent cases, but they mostly concern areas other than public education...

...This may be difficult, not only for younger children but also for older children who face peer pressure to conform...

...In Mozert v. Hawkins County Public Schools (1986), Hull found that the parents' right to free exercise of religion had indeed been infringed...

...Judge Kennedy, in her Sixth Circuit concurring opinion in the Mozert case, argued that a uniform series of readers is necessary to fulfill the state's interest in teaching citizenship and democratic self-government...

...At first the parents and local school teachers and principals worked out an accommodation to let the affected children "opt out" of the reading classes and study alternative books...

...It did mean that the objecting students would not have to study them...

...That some students find exposure to some ideas in the Holt series objectionable cannot be grounds for an exemption if the government is to teach all students to "read and discuss complex, morally and socially difficult issues," wrote Kennedy...

...If the Court had agreed to hear Mozert and supported the parents, it would have meant a significant extension of free exercise protections into the arena of the public schools...

...At the District Court trial, Judge Hull found that it does...

...Differing viewpoints are essential in teaching civil tolerance, an element of good citizenship which the Tennessee legislature requires the schools to teach...

...and (3) work through established political processes to change the decision of the school board about the textbooks it uses...

...She could not be denied government benefits, the Court said, simply for following the dictates of her religion, even if the requirements for the benefits say nothing directly about religion...

...The high court denied their petition...

...Frost and the other parents still refused to let their children study the required books...

...In her concurring opinion, Judge Kennedy reasoned that even if reading the textbooks did burden the parents' or students' free exercise of religion, the state has an overriding interest in providing quality public education...

...James Lutheran Church in Detroit, and consultant to the Office of Church and Society of the American Lutheran Church, is currently a student at Yale Law School...

...The potential plethora of lawsuits would result in administrative chaos, putting both courts and local school officials in an untenable position...

...Little did they realize that their religious objections would make their way to the United States Supreme Court, which, on February 22, 1988-, denied their petition for a hearing...

...Furthermore, there is another long line of cases in the Supreme Court about the courts' role in overseeing religion and public education which strongly supports the county school board...

...Tennessee law already provided parents with the option of educating their children entirely at home...

...If we are to eliminate everything that is objectionable to any of these warring sects or inconsistent with any of their doctrines, we will leave public education in shreds...

...Many public school cases have come before the Court under the other religion clause of the First Amendment: that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...

...They sought an injunction to be exempted from their local school board's administrative decision...

...Mozert was a case concerning personal objections to one textbook series used in the curriculum of the Hawkins County public schools...

...At trial Vicki Frost said she wants the benefits of modern life...

...They sought an injunction in the U. S. District Court in Eastern Tennessee to allow their children to be excused from reading class and never again be required to read the textbooks they considered religiously offensive...

...Instead, in supporting the local school board, the Court has continued to refuse to make the federal judiciary a "super school board" to the nation...

...Frost's strongest case support, then the constitutional status of her claim looks less persuasive...

...The Yoders' free exercise rights were infringed when the state sought them out for criminal prosecution...

...The parents were being forced to give up a governmental benefit-free public education-for refusing to allow their children to do what they sincerely believed to be prohibited by their religion...

...Frost showed these primers to other parents who shared her fundamentalist Christian beliefs, who in turn pored over their own children's textbooks...

...This requires exposure to a variety of viewpoints, some of which will be controversial...

...What is the constitutional significance of this decision, in light of Supreme Court rulings on similar cases...

...Last fall the parents petitioned the Supreme Court to review (and, they hoped, overturn) the decision of the Appeals Court...