"Frank Ravitch has written a fine book, one that offers a fair and thorough treatment of a difficult and vexing political and constitutional issue." Law and Politics Book Review

Reframes religion’s role in twentieth-century American public education The processes of secularization and desegregation were among the two most radical transformations of the American public school system in all its history. Many regard the 1962 and 1963 US Supreme Court rulings against school prayer and Bible-reading as the end of religion in public schools. Likewise, the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case is seen as the dawn of school racial equality. Yet, these two major twentieth-century American educational movements are often perceived as having no bearing on one another. Without a Prayer redefines secularization and desegregation as intrinsically linked. Using New York City as a window into a national story, the volume argues that these rulings failed to successfully remove religion from public schools, because it was worked into the foundation of the public education structure, especially how public schools treated race and moral formation. Moreover, even public schools that were not legally segregated nonetheless remained racially segregated in part because public schools rooted moral lessons in an invented tradition—Judeo-Christianity—and in whiteness. The book illuminates how both secularization and desegregation took the form of inculcating students into white Christian norms as part of their project of shaping them into citizens. Schools and religious and civic constituents worked together to promote programs such as juvenile delinquency prevention, moral and spiritual values curricula, and racial integration advocacy. At the same time, religiously and racially diverse community members drew on, resisted, and reimagined public school morality. Drawing on research from a number of archival repositories, newspaper and legal databases, and visual and material culture, Without a Prayer shows how religion and racial discrimination were woven into the very fabric of public schools, continuing to inform public education’s everyday practices even after the Supreme Court rulings.

The Turkish government is urged to make a fundamental shift in its approach to education by Minority Rights Group International (MRG) in a new report. A long-standing focus on state-building has been supplemented by increasing emphasis on religious teaching. Both feature strongly in the education system in Turkey making schools a focus of discrimination. The report, Discrimination based on Colour, Ethnic Origin, Language, Religion and Belief in Turkey’s Education System, reveals evidence of discrimination of minority groups and suggests comprehensive reforms to effectively ensure equality. “The ‘national’ education system, which for decades aimed to create young Turkish nationalists, has in recent years become a vehicle for raising young religious Turkish nationalists,” says Nurcan Kaya, Turkey Coordinator of Minority Rights Group International. Religious education is compulsory from grade four in primary schools. While some information on world religions has been introduced, the emphasis remains on teaching Sunni Muslim religious practices. Children of Jewish and Christian families may apply to opt out, but the process can be cumbersome and in many schools alternatives are not provided for them. Non-Muslim students who have opted out can still find themselves having to remain in the religious instruction class or alternatively having to wander in the school corridor – making them vulnerable to taunts from pupils and even teachers. The opt out possibility is still not available to children of other minorities. Another issue is mother tongue education. In 2012, a new elective on the living languages and dialects in Turkey was introduced but due to various limitations, minorities remain marginalised “others” in the education system. Subsequent to the 2012 reform, the report monitors discrimination in the formal education system in the period of the academic year of 2014-2015. The findings are based on the field work of the Monitoring Discrimination in Education Network, an alliance of 16 organizations working in Turkey. The report compiles numerous cases of discrimination based on language, religion, ethnicity, skin colour and the level of income. “In order to bring about a fundamental solution to these problems in the education system, the government must prioritise developing an approach that sees all groups as equal and that responds to demands for rights based on such an understanding of equality,” says Kaya. The report highlights that Turkey has no anti-discrimination law or an equality commission to which victims of discrimination can apply. The existing legislation contains no effective and accessible means of judicial remedies or compensation. Therefore, many discriminatory practices are not reported to school administrations. “The entire education system is based on Turkishness. Non-Turkish groups are either not referred to or referred in a negative way,” says Kaya. “Education system has played a significant role in deepening conflict in society. The positive representation of other groups in the education system would contribute to social peace and harmony.” In order to resolve the many problems in the education system that the current approach causes, the overall aim of government education policy should be cleared of ideological references, and the protection of children’s best interests and the right to education in line with international standards should be considered its fundamental goal, says the report.

Provides divergent views on the issue of religion in public schools in the United States.

Controversial Supreme Court decisions have barred organized school prayer, but neither the Court nor public policy exclude religion from schools altogether. In this book, one of America's leading constitutional scholars asks what role religion ought to play in public schools. Kent Greenawalt explores many of the most divisive issues in educational debate, including teaching about the origins of life, sex education, and when--or whether--students can opt out of school activities for religious reasons. Using these and other case studies, Greenawalt considers how to balance the country's constitutional commitment to personal freedoms and to the separation of church and state with the vital role that religion has always played in American society. Do we risk distorting students' understanding of America's past and present by ignoring religion in public-school curricula? When does teaching about religion cross the line into the promotion of religion? Tracing the historical development of religion within public schools and considering every major Supreme Court case, Greenawalt concludes that the bans on school prayer and the teaching of creationism are justified, and that the court should more closely examine such activities as the singing of religious songs and student papers on religious topics. He also argues that students ought to be taught more about religion--both its contributions and shortcomings--especially in courses in history. To do otherwise, he writes, is to present a seriously distorted picture of society and indirectly to be other than neutral in presenting secularism and religion. Written with exemplary clarity and even-handedness, this is a major book about some of the most pressing and contentious issues in educational policy and constitutional law today.

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school stu­dents, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to un­authorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compul­sory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked trans­forming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any proce­dural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the view­point it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magiste­rial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.

The fight over the role of religion in public schools is far from finished, and the last and final words have not been written. This collection of original essays reveals and updates the battlefield. Included are essays on school prayer, the evolution/intelligent design debate, public funding of religious groups on university campuses, religious themes in school-taught literature, and more. With diverse tones and points of view, these essays offer quality scholarship while revealing and honoring the heat these themes generate.

GBS LOCAL 07-30-2002 $20.00.

The appropriate regulation of the employment decisions of religious schools is an issue of great importance considering the impact that religious schools can have on the wellbeing of many individuals. Religious schools often play a central role in the lives of religious communities by providing religious education and formation to religious adherents, allowing religious adherents to fulfill spiritual and charitable obligations, and acting as a community centre for the religious community to socialise together and meet to discuss issues of mutual concern. They can also make an important contribution to the common good by developing desirable character traits in their students, employees and others involved with the school. Religious schools, however, also have the capacity to harm many individuals in the community by promoting a range of controversial theological and ethical beliefs, and denying individuals the opportunity to be included within religious schools as employees and students. The potential for religious schools to both help and harm members of the community is increasing due to the long term rise in the popularity of religious schools in Australia.The aim of this book is to assess the merits of different approaches to regulating the ability of religious schools to make employment decisions based on an employee's compatibility with the school's religion. The particular focus is on the merits of the general exception approach adopted under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) that allows religious schools to make employment decisions on grounds that would otherwise be prohibited under the Act. The merits of the general exception approach are considered in relation to two alternative approaches: the inherent requirement test and the opt-in model. The inherent requirement test allows religious schools to make employment decisions on the basis of a person's compatibility with the school's religion for employment positions where a religious component is an inherent requirement. The opt-in model involves a registration process that allows religious schools to adapt the protections provided under the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW) to the needs of each religious school.

“Judeo-Christian” is a remarkably easy term to look right through. Judaism and Christianity obviously share tenets, texts, and beliefs that have strongly influenced American democracy. In this ambitious book, however, K. Healan Gaston challenges the myth of a monolithic Judeo-Christian America. She demonstrates that the idea is not only a recent and deliberate construct, but also a potentially dangerous one. From the time of its widespread adoption in the 1930s, the ostensible inclusiveness of Judeo-Christian terminology concealed efforts to promote particular conceptions of religion, secularism, and politics. Gaston also shows that this new language, originally rooted in arguments over the nature of democracy that intensified in the early Cold War years, later became a marker in the culture wars that continue today. She argues that the debate on what constituted Judeo-Christian—and American—identity has shaped the country’s religious and political culture much more extensively than previously recognized.