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

[Berg, Thomas C.]

 A question concerning Alan's post and one concerning Rick's post.

 Alan:  You point out, correctly, that music from a variety of religious
traditions could be incorporated (along with secular music) in an overall
music program.  But what if the choir director thinks that only a certain
repertoire has music or cultural value, and that repertoire coincides with
only one religious tradition?  Suppose, for example, that the director
thinks that only the classical Western European tradition from, say,
Palestrina (16th century) through Brahms (mid-19th-century) has musical
value; as a result, although the repertoire has both secular and religious
pieces, the religious pieces are only Christian in content.  While that
choice might reflect a narrow musical vision, I doubt that it is
unconstitutional, since there is plainly a secular reason for the choice;
and I don't think that the director is nevertheless under an obligation to
maintain religious equality in the results (unless it could be shown that
the choice of classical Western European music was made *because* it would
favor Christian content).  In other words, I still wonder whether your
emphasis on religious equality can really be fully operative in this setting
-- where there may be secular cultural reasons for choosing music that turns
out to reflect one religious tradition.  Similarly, secular musical and
cultural concerns could explain the choice of the gospel choir, although I
concede that it's more of a stretch.  I'm just questioning how much we can
really demand religious equality in this sort of context.

 Re. Rick's post:  I hate to bug Rick, since he and I agree on many things,
but we did disagree a while back on the University of North Carolina
freshman course that taught passages from the Koran, so let me harp on that.
In our exchange there, I remember you expressing great skepticism about
whether a public school (in that case, even a university) could teach about
a religious tradition in a neutral or even-handed sense, or whether such a
sense even exists.  But if gospel music can be taught (indeed, performed) in
a way that focuses on the objective musical qualities, then it seems to me
that a fortiori the university could teach about Islam in an even-handed
way, and should be allowed the chance to show that it can do so.  Or was
your concern that all freshmen had to take the course (but I thought I
remembered that an opt-out didn't satisfy your concern)?  To be sure, the
Islam course also could have stepped over the line and made normative claims
in favor of Islam, but again I thought I remembered that your concern went
beyond that -- you were doubtful that even-handedness was ever possible in
such a course.

If I'm keeping this thread on life support with questions like this, it's
probably because I'm interested because I'm a choral singer myself.

Tom Berg
University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)




-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Brownstein
To: Berg, Thomas C.; Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Sent: 11/25/02 8:41 PM
Subject: Re: Seminole County School Board Announces New Guidelines Which P
ermit High School Choir To  Sing At Religious Events


I don't think the situation is as stark as Tom suggests. We may not be
able to include all religious faiths in a mural or display relating to
law, but we can include several along with a variety of secular messages
--
 enough to reduce the liklihood that the display communicates a message
of
endorsement.

Religious music of a variety of faiths can easily be integrated into a
choir programs that include both religious and secular music. I don't
think that constitutes secularism. It does help to confirm and
communicate
that the music is chosen for its musical value and interest and not
because of the religious message it expresses. There are many rich
religious musical traditions. I don't think we are bowing to secularism
if
we look askance at programs that only involve religious music and are
limited exclusively to only one tradition in a public school.


Alan Brownstein
UC Davis
visiting at UNSW



It seems to me





> 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
> Currently visiting at UNSW
>
>
>
> At 06:46 PM 11/22/2002 -0500, you wrote:
> >At 2:05 PM -0800 11/22/02, Horwitz, Paul wrote:
> >>it would seem to me the pivotal questions here ought to be the
> >>nature of gospel (although such a general question would not, I
think,
> >>ultimately be terribly helpful), the nature of this particular
gospel
> choir,
> >>and the nature of its relationship with the school -- not whether
they
> >>choose to play at churches as well as Disney World.
> >
> >It seems clear from reading this thread that not many members of this
> >list have high-school age children, or at least not high-school age
> >children attending public schools. Allow me to add some information
> >gleaned, courtesy of my rather tardy start in the family department,
> >as a parent of several students at the Boston Latin School.
> >
> >I preface these observations with the note that when *I* was in
> >public high school, in New York City, there were no gospel choirs,
> >although high school principals were much given (at least mine was)
> >to explicitly religious utterance within their official capacities.
> >
> >Gospel choirs seem to have become popular in recent years (decades?)
> >not because school officials wanted to instill religion in the
> >students, but because students have demanded it. More specifically,
> >*black* students demanded it, because gospel music is a specifically
> >African-American musical tradition. Bear in mind that most high
> >school choruses dwell in the land of Handel and other avatars of the
> >DWM tradition. In short, dullsville. Gospel music has a bit of
> >proto-jazz pizzazz to it, which makes it very attractive to
> >adolescent children. Now, Boston Latin School being what it is, most
> >of the gospel choir at this point is not black, but is black, white
> >(more Catholics and Jews than Protestants), Asian (of at least five
> >nationalities), Hispanic, you name it. Most parents consider this A
> >Good Thing, and I've never been aware of any objection to the gospel
> >choir on religious grounds, though there are surely many
> >non-Christians (non-black-evangelical-Protestant-Christians if you
> >want to draw the lines as narrowly as Michael Newsom does) in it and
> >forced, by dint of how in-school performances are organized, to sit
> >through its performances. I also believe the gospel choir has
> >performed at some churches, and I'm not aware of any temples, mosques
> >or ashrams at which it has performed, though I'm also unaware of any
> >instance in which they were invited to do so.
> >
> >All of this is to say that the gospel choir is a well-established
> >institution in American public schools, and that the pivotal issue in
> >its popularity is not religious proselytization but racial harmony
> >(pardon the pun). Viewed from this angle, as a racial-cultural
> >expression, it seems constitutionally quite benign.
> >
> >--
> >Vance R. Koven
>