Dancing and secular purpose

[Michael McConnell]

Marc Stern brings up the Eighth Circuit's decision in
Clayton v. Place, saying that he thinks it is wrongly
decided. This is a very interesting case, and I devote an
entire class session to discussing it (though I use, for
class purposes, the district court opinion, which captures
much more of the richness of the background of the case and
which, incidentally, comes out the other way).

The case involves a public school in an area with a
significant minority of hard shell Baptists who disapprove
of dancing. Rather than sponsor a dance, the school
cooperates with private groups within the school who put on
a dance at a neutral location, followed by a breakfast on
school property.

I consider much of the argument in the case disingenuous,
since it denies the religious nature of the conflict. But
unlike Marc, I think the result is correct and indeed
commendable. Here we are faced with a conflict between a
significant minority who believe dancing is sinful and a
majority who think it is fun. What is the "neutral" course
for the school to take? Is it to officially sponsor the
dance on school property, thus plainly siding with the
majority over the minority? Or is it to "privatize" the
event--cooperating with private efforts but not extending
official approval to them?

By the way, this almost exactly parallels the treatment of
baccalaureate services by many schools--an issue we discuss
in connection with Lee v. Weisman. Most people think it is
"neutral" to allow private baccalaureate services but would
be an "endorsement" of religion to make those services an
official part of graduation. Why is the same not also true
of dances? (I am not arguing, of course, that the
Constitution *compels* neutrality with regard to dancing,
just that neutrality with regard to dancing--or other
points of religious controversy--would seem to be
permissible.)

-- Michael McConnell (U of Utah)