Holiday Cheer Unhypothetical

[Michael McConnell]

Before departing for the Holy Land, Sandy Levinson offers the
following:

> From my perspective, *both* Mark and Rick are right (a classic rabbinic
> paradox, perhaps).  Isn't this added evidence, as Doug Laycock has
> repeatedly suggested, that the public schools should get out of the
> Christmas-Hanukah-Kwanza-happy reindeer mode entirely?

Absolutely not. We mustn't allow increasingly sensitive
constitutional concerns to overwhelm pedagogy, which is, after all,
the purpose of the schools. It is important that schools be fun as
well as serious, and bare walls in December would be extremely
depressing to most American youngsters. Holidays are also a cheap-and-
easy means of teaching cultural pluralism and history to children,
even very small children.

If Sandy were right about this, it would not follow that we should
have public schools without holiday celebrations, but that it is
impossible for a religiously diverse country to maintain public
schools consistently with the First Amendment. All the problems of
holiday celebrations are replicated in the curriculum, in even more
serious ways.

The notion that we can achieve neutrality through silence is an
illusion.  It seems to me there are only three logical alternatives:
(1) schools in which the democratic will of the people prevails,
mediated through representative institutions, (2) schools in which
experts strive to be as sensitive and pluralistic as possible, but
will make many, many mistakes, and (3) educational choice. From a
First Amendment point of view, educational choice is the best
alternative; it is the only alternative that truly eliminates
government coercion and favoritism. But the countervailing
consideration is the civic republic ideal of building unity through
common schools. Whenever the objective is unity, minorities will
suffer. Is the price too high?












-- Michael McConnell (U of Chicago, on research leave at U of
Utah)