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New book debunks myths about religion in public schools
Key myths debunked by DelFattore, who is recognized as an expert on freedom of speech and religion in public schools and universities, are that God has been kicked out of the nation’s public schools, that religion in the schools was never an issue until the 1960s and that only nonbelievers or members of minority faiths object to state-sponsored prayer in the public schools. The book is coming out just as the U.S. Supreme Court hears a case concerning the constitutionality of the use of the phrase “under God” when public school teachers lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance. “Contrary to popular belief, God has certainly not been kicked out of the public schools,” DelFattore said of the first myth. “What is banned is state-sponsored prayer, not the religious speech of the students themselves. “The Supreme Court never at any time said students cannot pray in school,” she said. “What the justices said was that the state cannot make prayer an official part of a school day. On their own time within the school, children are free to pray as they see fit, and that includes praying aloud and in groups as long as it is on their own initiative.” The second myth is that religion in the public schools was never an issue in America until the 1960s, when firebrand atheist Madelyn Murray O’Hair stirred up controversy and headlines. “That is not true,” DelFattore said, adding that the controversy over religion in the public schools has a long and sometimes bloody history in the United States. DelFattore pointed to a pitched battle in Philadelphia in 1844 in which 30 people were killed while fighting over which Bible, the Protestant or the Catholic, should be read in the city’s schools. “You cannot say there were no conflicts over religion in the public schools,” she said. “Both sides had cannons, and you can safely say that cannons count as conflict.” In fact, DelFattore said there were a number of court cases concerning state-sponsored religious speech that preceded that filed by O’Hair. She said those cases were largely ignored by the media, which instead chose to focus on O’Hair because she was both colorful and controversial. A third myth is that only nonbelievers or members of minority faiths have objected to state-sponsored prayer in the public schools, DelFattore said. “In the Colonial era, there were fights between Anglicans, Unitarians and Congregationalists over whose prayers to say in the tax-supported schools of Massachusetts,” she said. Later conflicts pitted native-born Protestants against Catholic immigrants, largely Irish, who objected to the use of distinctively Protestant prayers in public schools. The constant conflict underscores the truth that “once you have religion as part of the official day in the public schools, it is inevitable that you will have fights over whose religion,” DelFattore said. But, from the very beginning of religious conflict on this continent, which according to DelFattore began “just about as soon as the colonists had cleared the trees and chased the bears off Main Street,” members of majority faiths have joined nonbelievers and minority worshippers in maintaining that the government should stay out of religion. Here in Delaware, DelFattore said, a Presbyterian family in Dover sued the state’s public school system for failing to honor the Supreme Court’s 1963 decision against state-sponsored prayer and Bible reading. In their view, state-sponsored Bible reading and prayer violated the rights of religious minorities and nonbelievers, and they sued out of the conviction that as members of the Protestant majority they had a duty to ensure governmental neutrality in religious matters. To many religious individuals of all faiths, there is a huge difference between saying that people should pray and saying that the government should help them do it. “Some of the most determined opposition to school-sponsored religion has come from the National Council of Churches and other religious groups,” DelFattore said. “That’s a political view, not a litmus test of belief.” With respect to nonbelievers, DelFattore said, “It should never be forgotten that belief in God is not a requirement for first-class citizenship in America, and the views of nonbelievers can’t just be brushed aside as if they had no right to participate in public debate.” The issue of religion in the public schools is a thorny one, DelFattore said, because it represents the continuing struggle to balance two of the most fundamental tenets of Americanism: majority rule and individual rights.
The book also considers the lingering impact of Southern politicians who knowingly linked this controversy to their fears about the civil rights movement and their determination to slow the integration of the public schools. Eight years after the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that called for integration of the schools, many Southern states still had not complied. It was their hope to somehow evade the Supreme Court’s power over the states, DelFattore said. As a result, when the justices banned state-sponsored prayer for the first time in 1962, the issue was “immediately blown out of all proportion” by politicians interested in discrediting the court and became an even greater “political football,” DelFattore said. Congressman George W. Andrews, a Democrat from Alabama, was quite blunt, saying the Supreme Court had “put the Negroes in the schools (and) now they put God out of the schools.” “This is a battle that seems to never end,” DelFattore said, noting the 2004 case concerning the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. “Many people see that as a nonsectarian phrase,” DelFattore said, “but if you do not worship a divinity, or if you do not worship the Judeo-Christian divinity to which it refers, it is not nonsectarian. It represents a decision by government that God exists--and that means the Judeo-Christian God--and that America is under that God. The question is whether the state can make the declaration of that belief an official part of the school day.” DelFattore said the phrase was not in the original Pledge of Allegiance but was added in 1954, a time when many people were trying to codify through legislation the pre-war practices of an America they saw changing drastically in the post-World War II era. She predicts such controversy will continue because there is no real solution but rather compromises and accommodations. “It seems as if something in the human soul causes us to see the big questions clearly,” DelFattore said, “like whether God exists and whether there is life after death. Whatever we believe seems so obvious, so clear, so irrefutable that we have trouble understanding why other people don’t see it the same way we do.” The book has received strong reviews from a variety of individuals, many representing diverse faiths. Marc D. Stern, co-director of the legal department for the American Jewish Congress, called it “a perceptive, balanced and insightful examination of the nation's continuing battle over religion in schools. There is much here that does not appear in judicial decisions or media reports, especially since DelFattore has taken the time to speak--and listen--to partisans on both sides. I even learned things I didn't know about events in which I was a participant. If the book won't end the debate, and it won't, it should make it more informed." “‘The Fourth R’ offers a thorough and thoughtful look at the long evolution of religion in the public schools. Even those who think they know this history will be surprised by the drama played out across three centuries by the courts, the Congress and ever-expanding advocacy groups,” according to the Rev. Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. “Those who think the matter can be resolved by a ‘moment of silence’ or equal access may have cause to reassess that view in this religiously plural post-Sept. 11 environment. A must read and important contribution to American religious and social history.” J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, said DelFattore “is to be congratulated for crafting a reader-friendly, highly enjoyable book about religion in the public schools. She tells the story using a self-described ‘interdisciplinary’ approach, weaving together the historical, social and political threads along with the strictly legal ones. The book is mandatory reading for teachers, students, parents and all who are interested in the hazardous intersection of religion and government in the context of the public schools.” “It is clear the ‘culture wars’ are fought inside our public schools. The battles regarding religion are often the most contentious,” Julie Underwood, general counsel and associate executive director of the National School Boards Association, said. “This volume does a wonderful job of chronicling those battles throughout the last century. It is not the dry recitation of Supreme Court holdings but a complex treatment of historical, political, social and legal events that have had an impact on these issues. I would recommend it to the advocate, scholar and practitioner to inform and arm themselves for these never-ending battles.” “The Fourth R: Conflicts Over Religion in America’s Public Schools,” is published by Yale University Press, which also published DelFattore’s 1992 book “What Johnny Shouldn't Read: Textbook Censorship in America.” "What Johnny Shouldn't Read" won book-of-the-year awards from the American Library Association and the American Educational Research Association. Article by Neil Thomas To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
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