Secular purpose

[Eugene Volokh]

Ed Darrell writes:

> I worry about the idea that it is a valid secular purpose to avoid
> controversial topics.  Do we apply this same standard to history?

    Yes, we do, and constitutionally so.  Completely controversy-free
education is bad.  So is education that focuses on topics that are so
controversial that large segments of the population become
disillusioned with the school system, or that class discussions are
practically excessively likely to turn into excessively religious or
political debates that may cause excessive acrimony or perceived
endorsement of one or another religious view (note the repeated focus
on "excessive").  Or so at least a reasonable legislator may
conclude.

> To use the First Amendment to require a cover-up of knowledge stretches it too
> far.

    I agree that the First Amendment does not generally *require* the
elimination of controversial topics.  But I think that it
doesn't generally *prohibit* such elimination, either.  (Query,
though, whether the ban on teaching sufficiently religious views in
school constitutes "a cover-up of knowledge," and, if it doesn't, why
not -- is it that religious views are per se not knowledge, or that
the Court may conclude that creationism is not knowledge?)

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, (310) 206-3926  fax -7010
               405 Hilgard Ave., L.A., CA 90095