Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which P ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events

[Rick Duncan]

A stand alone Gospel Choir (i.e. one that focuses only
on Gospel music) should be able to pass EC muster so
long as its purpose and effect are to teach and
perform Gospel music as an art form. The Court has
clearly held on a number of occasions that it is
permissible to teach about religion. Gospel music is a
recognized musical genre and there is no reason why
the public schools may not offer a course on this art
form.

The fact that the music is being *performed* does not
transform an otherwise academic course into forbidden
worship. Music students are supposed to perform; that
is the purpose of their studies.

So long as the choir director is careful to emphasize
the art form, and to avoid teaching the lyrics as
religious truth, there is absolutely no EC problem
with the course. Just as a school can offer an
academic course on, say, Islam, without being required
to teach about other religions in the course, a school
can offer a Gospel Choir class without including music
from other traditions. What matters is whether the
class is taught as an academic performance art class,
not whether its subject matter is more narrow than
some critics would prefer.

Cheers, Rick Duncan

--- Michael Newsom <mnewsom at LAW.HOWARD.EDU> wrote:
> If I may intrude, obviously the Court has held that
> some December holiday
> displays pass EC muster, so long as there is enough
> secular content.  The
> Court also said that in American culture Christmas
> has largely become a
> secular holiday.
>
> Assuming that the Court is right, it does not
> necessarily follow that gospel
> choirs can pass EC muster.  First, we are not
> talking about "displays" in
> the same sense.  The various choirs are not somehow
> grouped together in one
> performance, are they?  Second, the dynamics of
> stigma, coercion and the
> like are entirely different in the two situations.
> You cannot remove the
> element of coercion, it seems to me.  It inheres in
> the situation itself, or
> at least the Court so intimated in Engel, Schempp,
> Lee and Santa Fe ISD.
> Again, the opt out remedy is no defense, at least
> not in those cases.
> Third, I am not sure that gospel choirs and gospel
> music have become as
> secularized as Christmas has.  You have to go to a
> black church, Protestant
> or Catholic, with a gospel choir one Sunday morning
> to see -- and hear --
> what I mean.  There is nothing secular in what
> unfolds.  Indeed, to suggest
> that all that happens is merely the exposition of a
> musical genre with only
> cultural or ethnic significance without any
> connection or relation to God
> would be an insult most of the black people in the
> pews for whom gospel
> music takes on almost sacramental dimensions, as a
> means or channel of God's
> grace.  To the extent that the gospel music
> tradition finds expression in
> white churches, I strongly suspect that the
> worshippers there would have a
> similar take on the music.
>
> Your Ten Commandments hypotheticals more nearly
> evoke Lynch and the other
> cases, to be sure, but they don't adequately speak
> to the gospel choir
> situation.  Accommodating a gospel choir and
> accommodating the Decalogue are
> not comparable.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Berg, Thomas C." <TCBERG at STTHOMAS.EDU>
> To: <RELIGIONLAW at listserv.ucla.edu>
> Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 12:16 PM
> Subject: Re: Seminole County School Board Announces
> New Guidelines Which P
> ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious Events
>
>
> > Alan writes:
> >
> > "As to Tom's comments, about a school with
> multiple choirs where only one
> is
> > religious, I think this brings us back to a common
> dilemma we see in
> > Charitable Choice programs and other settings. The
> problems inherent with
> > providing public support for religious programs
> reflecting majority
> beliefs
> > are not cured by providing religious minorities
> secular alternatives. That
> > solves a coercion concern, but does nothing to
> satisfy equality or
> > endorsement concerns about religious favoritism."
> >
> >
> > Alan, would you then say that it is impermissible
> for the Court to have
> the
> > Ten Commandmanents in the courthouse *even if* it
> is  part of a larger
> > display about the origins of American law, with
> secular components like
> the
> > Declaration and the Magna Carta (analogous here to
> the Classical Choir and
> > the Jazz Choir)?  If having significant secular
> alternatives -- and
> thereby
> > removing the element of coercion or pressure to
> sing in a religious
> choir --
> > doesn't satisfy the Establishment Clause concerns,
> then the
> impermissibility
> > of the Commandments even in the overall context
> would seem to follow.  But
> > to say that no religious presence is permitted,
> even as part of a larger,
> > overall secular context, unless all religions have
> an equal presence is a
> > recipe for secularization, isn't it?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > *******************
> > Thomas C. Berg
> > University of St. Thomas School of Law
> > Mail # TMH 444C
> > 1000 La Salle Avenue
> > Minneapolis, MN   55403-2005
> > Phone: (651) 962-4918
> > Fax: (651) 962-4915
> > tcberg at stthomas.edu
> >
> > ************************
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Alan Brownstein
> [mailto:aebrownstein at UCDAVIS.EDU]
> > Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 7:48 PM
> > To: RELIGIONLAW at listserv.ucla.edu
> > Subject: Re: Seminole County School Board
> Announces New Guidelines Which
> > P ermit High School Choir To Sing At Religious
> Events
> >
> >
> > As the proud father of an 18 year old daughter
> with a very fine singing
> > voice who participated in high school choir, let
> me assure Vince that
> other
> > list members had children latter in life and that
> not all public schools
> > with multiple choirs have Gospel choirs. Davis
> High has a madrigal choir,
> a
> > jazz choir, and a general choir. Of course, there
> are not many
> > African-Americans living in Davis (and not all
> that many Jews live here
> > either).
> >
> > But the thrust of his post is that because Gospel
> choirs represent a
> > response to racial inclusion, they do not
> constitute a problem in terms of
> > religious endorsement or exclusion. As a general
> principle, I'm just not
> > sure that works although it works on some
> occasions where the racial or
> > national element of the event completely
> transcends any religious
> > connotations (e.g. St. Patrick's Day Celebrations
> in NYC). (I leave it to
> > others with more musical experience and aptitude
> to evaluate whether that
> > is the case for Gospel choirs.)
> >
> > Canada often equates the accommodation of
> Catholicism with the
> > accommodation of its French minority. That has
> resulted in some bizarre
> > judicial decisions that seem impossible to justify
> from a religious
> > equality perspective. One can think of other
> examples in the U.S. and
> > elsewhere where there is a powerful correlation
> between race or ethnicity
> > and religion. Accommodating the former with
> specific religious programs
> > seems problematic to me. It is even more of a
> problem when the faith of
> the
> > racial or ethnic minority represents the majority
> religion in the
> > community. (By the way, where there is a very
> strong correlation between
> > race, ethnicity or nationality and religion, I
> think the converse
> situation
> > is a potential problem too. Attempts to
> accommodate the religion may
> result
> > in de facto preferences for certain ethnic or
> national groups.)
> >
> >
> > Alan Brownstein
> > UC Davis
>
=== message truncated ===


=====
"Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
    --President George W. Bush (quoting John Page)

"When the Round Table is broken every man must follow Galahad or Mordred; middle things are gone."  -C.S. Lewis

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