Sending Good News Club Fliers Home With Students

Wed Dec 3 09:18:55 PST 2008

The No Child Left Behind Act mandated a set of religion in school
guidelines which were prepared unilaterally by DOJ and DOE without any
outside input.(I had submitted  a FOIA request for outsiders'
comments.There were none.)The NCLB act is deficient, however, in that
guidelines are required only with regard to protected student
activity-not prohibited school activities. Federal funds are cut off
only for school violations of student rights of religious expression,not
for school support for religion.I have tried to interest Congress in an
amendment which better balanced the constitutional interests to no
avail.
Marc Stern   

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Saperstein,
David (RAC)
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 12:03 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Sending Good News Club Fliers Home With Students

Or folks can urge the Obama  Education Department to update and reissue
the religious guidelines that for several years the Clinton
administration sent out widely across the country - guidelines based on
the consensus views of a coalition representing a broad range of
viewpoints on church-state issues.  According to Gus S, it helped reduce
litigation.

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of James Maule
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:30 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Sending Good News Club Fliers Home With Stude

Yes, Doug, the full article mentions the Third Circuit case you cite. An
interesting aspect of this case, and many others raising First Amendment
issues in the school context, is how school officials and employees
don't seem to know what the law permits, requires, or prohibits. The
district official who was quoted refers to what happened as an
"inadvertent" error. How can state and local governments minimize these
inadvertent errors? Counsel tend not to be involved until after the
fact. I suggest that school districts need to arrange for education of
their employees on these matters, but I suppose there are funding and
time allocation constraints that might get in the way. Perhaps law
faculty could organize some sort of pro bono program for law students,
who surely are capable of presenting, with faculty guidance, "First
Amendment principles for school districts" in nearby schools.

Jim

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 10:28 AM
To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Sending Good News Club Fliers Home With Students

I think this has already been litigated in the Third Circuit, and the
school district lost. Child Evangelism Fellowship v. Stafford Township
School District, 386 F.3d 514 (3d Cir. 2004) (Alito, J.).  It's only an
appeal from a preliminary injunction, but on a very quick skim, it looks
like Alito pretty much decides it as a matter of law; he doesn't seem to
restrict himself to probable sucess on the merits.

It has also been litigated in the Fourth Circuit, in the Montgomery
County Schools, with the same result on two appeals.  I saw Gus
Steinhilber at a conference a while ago; he used to be general counsel
to the National Association of School Boards and he represented
Montgomery County.  He told me that many of the Jewish teachers
absolutely refused to distribute the flyers no matter what the court
said.  The school board went to the union and negotiated a deal where,
for extra pay, Christian teachers would distribute the flyers in all the
classrooms.  He didn't say whether the Jewish teachesr were insisting on
their own view of the Establishmetn Clause, or making a claim of
conscience, but this sounds like a reasonable accomodation to me.

Quoting James Maule <Maule at law.villanova.edu>:

> FYI, for what it's worth, perhaps of interest to someone writing 
> about this issue. (Haverford Township is in Delaware County, just to 
> the west of Philadelphia).
>
> Jim Maule
> Villanova University School of Law
>
>> From http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/35457869.html
>
> Selected portions:
>
> Evangelical group sues Haverford district over fliers
>
> Haverford Township school officials are trying to extricate the 
> district from a legal tussle with an evangelical Christian group that 
> wants to send informational fliers home with grade-school students. 
> Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) filed suit against the Haverford 
> Township School District in late October after the district refused 
> to distribute fliers promoting the group's after-school Good News 
> Club.
>
> * * *
>
> After CEF sued, the district relented and sent out between 750 and 
> 800 fliers in students' Friday take-home folders the week before 
> Thanksgiving, said Mary Beth Lauer, the district's 
> community-relations director. The fliers, which were sent home with 
> students at Chatham Park and Chestnutwold Elementaries, contained a 
> disclaimer declaring that the school did not sponsor or endorse the 
> activity.
>
> * * *
>
> In a statement, Superintendent William Keilbaugh said: "If, as 
> alleged, our rule of distributing only school and township youth 
> recreation program materials was not strictly complied with, and 
> other groups' materials were sent home with students, that was an 
> inadvertent error we will correct going forward."
>
> The district is hoping to settle the matter out of court, although it 
> might still be on the hook for legal and court fees. Meanwhile, 
> school officials are trying to figure how to best enforce the 
> district's flier policy - which allows only school- and 
> township-sponsored groups to send home letters with the children - 
> without hurting groups such as PTOs.
>
> * * *
>
> Cheryl Wert, a PTO member at Chestnutwold, said the district would 
> not allow her to send a flier about this weekend's holiday gift and 
> craft fair, an annual fund-raiser for the PTO.
>
> * * *
>
> _______________________________________________
> To post, send message to Religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see 
> http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
>
> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as 
> private.  Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are 
> posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can 
> (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
>
>
>

Douglas Laycock
Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
  734-647-9713

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/attachments/20081203/2e9c3cae/attachment.htm 