secular purpose

[Steven D. Jamar]

I don't think the business analogy works - I don't think the government has
the same freedom as a business to choose not to alienate some citizens when
it comes to education - it is not a plausible secular justification - or if
it is, it cannot be used so separated from the essential purpose of
education - the plausibility fades away as soon as some level or real-world
testing is applied.  To adopt Eugene's position would require the
government to get out of education entirely - a position very attractive to
some no doubt - because any education will alienate someone.  The
creationist who taught my son's 6th grade social studies class (in the
Howard County, Maryland public schools) defined religion in such a way that
only the Judaic-Christian-Islamic religion was religion.  Absurd as this
was, and wrong-headed as it was, at least it was in Social Studies and not
in science class.  Should she have be prohibited from teaching about
religion in the course of teaching about world cultures because she was an
idiot?  Or wrong-headed about some things?  Certainly not.  Although she
alienated many people, a choice not to teach social studies strikes me as
not a "plausible" alternative at all - except in a world divorced from the
world.


--
Steven D. Jamar
Professor of Law
Director LRW Program (http://www.law.howard.edu/lrw/)
Howard University School of Law
2900 Van Ness Street NW
Washington, DC  20008

vox:  202-806-8017   fax:  202-806-8428
mailto:sjamar at law.howard.edu

He who loves the law dies either mad or poor.

Thomas Middleton, "The Phoenix," c. 1607