scholarly journals The Influence of Christian Nationalism on U.S. Public Educators’ Speech: Implications from Meriwether vs. Hartop

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
David Hoa Khoa Nguyen ◽  
Jeremy F. Price ◽  
Duaa H. Alwan

Public school educators must navigate very complex intersections of the First Amendment’s Establishment, Free Exercise, and Free Speech clauses. The 6th Circuit’s ruling in Meriwether vs. Hartop created a slippery slope that could create a hostile learning environment and be discriminatory speech while trying to balance public-school educators’ sincerely held religious beliefs. This article examines the Meriwether case and court ruling while providing a background of U.S. Christian nationalism and its implications in American public education.

Author(s):  
Timothy Zick

This book examines the relational dynamics between the U.S. Constitution’s Free Speech Clause and other constitutional rights. The free speech guarantee has intersected with a variety of other constitutional rights. Those intersections have significantly influenced the recognition, scope, and meaning of rights ranging from freedom of the press to the Second Amendment right to bear arms. They have also influenced interpretation of the Free Speech Clause itself. Free speech principles and doctrines have facilitated the recognition and effective exercise of constitutional rights, including equal protection, the right to abortion, and the free exercise of religion. They have also provided mediating principles for constructive debates about constitutional rights. At the same time, in its interactions with other constitutional rights, the Free Speech Clause has also been a complicating force. It has dominated rights discourse and subordinated or supplanted free press, assembly, petition, and free exercise rights. Currently, courts and commentators are fashioning the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms in the image of the Free Speech Clause. Borrowing the Free Speech Clause for this purpose may turn out to be detrimental for both rights. The book examines the common and distinctive dynamics that have brought free speech and other constitutional rights together. It assesses the products and consequences of these intersections, and draws important lessons from them about constitutional rights and constitutional liberty. Ultimately, the book defends a pluralistic conception of constitutional rights that seeks to leverage the power of the Free Speech Clause but also to tame its propensity to subordinate, supplant, and eclipse other constitutional rights.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Charles V. Willie

This article identifies public school education as a community affair which requires the talents of lawyers, social science scholars, and other kinds of people. Since public education is described as a community affair, diversity in student body and faculty is recommended as a way of gathering essential opinions on how education may benefit all individuals as well as the community. Grassroots strategies for achieving effective social action are discussed.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry L. Chambers

If courts are willing to expand religious liberty so that people may be allowed to choose-on the basis of their own religious beliefs-whether certain laws will apply to non-religious entities they create, those courts should take that step very carefully. This Paper explores the issue and pro- ceeds as follows. Part I discusses three recent Supreme Court cases that il- luminate the telescoping and the collectivization of free exercise rights. Part II considers problems that accompany telescoping and collectivizing free exercise rights. Part III suggests how courts should critically evaluate the telescoping and collectivizing of free exercise rights. This Paper con- cludes with a warning about the danger that can accompany insufficient consideration of the telescoping and collectivizing of free exercise rights through entities.


Author(s):  
Fred Brooks ◽  
Amanda Gutwirth

If one of the goals of macro social work in the United States is to decrease poverty and inequality, by most measures it has largely failed that mission over the past 40 years. After briefly documenting the four-decade rise in inequality and extreme poverty in the United States, three organizing campaigns are highlighted—living wage, Fight for $15, and strikes by public school educators—that fought hard to reverse such trends. A strategy, “bargaining for the common good,” which was implemented across those campaigns, is analyzed as a key ingredient to their success.


Author(s):  
Marquis Carter Grant

Principles of equity have largely been overlooked in the field of education in favor of an acute focus on equality. Brown vs. Board of Education challenged practices of separate but equal, maintaining that equality was the foundation on which education should be built if all students were to benefit from education. Without a dual consideration for both equity and equality, practitioners are limited in their ability to provide an appropriate education to diverse populations of children. It is not enough to give students the same access to learning opportunities and resources. Educators must also create individualized pathways to the learning environment if all students are to benefit academically.


2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 530-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne E. Eckes ◽  
Martha M. McCarthy

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) public school educators’ rights have not been clearly delineated by the courts. As such, the outcomes in legal controversies involving adverse employment consequences based on teachers’ sexual orientation have varied somewhat across jurisdictions and have been decided on a case-by-case basis. To examine the evolving law in this arena, this article analyzes all litigation pertaining to GLBT educators and antidiscrimination statutory provisions in all 50 states. By identifying and examining federal and state protections, this research contributes to an understanding of the role that legal requirements play in protecting GLBT public employees. Based on the comprehensive analysis of litigation and legislation, this article offers model statutory language to protect GLBT public employees.


Author(s):  
Susan Gluck Mezey

Opposition to same-sex marriage in the United States is frequently based on the religious belief that marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman. With most of the attention focused on wedding vendors, the clash between religious liberty and marriage equality has largely manifested itself in efforts by business owners, such as photographers, florists, caterers, and bakers, to deny their services to same-sex couples celebrating their marriages. Citing state antidiscrimination laws, the couples demand the owners treat them as they do their other customers. Owners of public accommodations (privately owned business open to the public) who object to facilitating the weddings of same-sex couples do so typically by asserting their personal religious beliefs as defenses when charged with violating such laws; they argue that they would view their participation (albeit indirect) in wedding ceremonies as endorsing same-sex marriage. As the lawsuits against them began to proliferate, the business owners asked the courts to shield them from liability for violating the laws prohibiting discrimination because of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation. They cited their First Amendment right to the free exercise of their religion and their right not to be compelled to speak, that is, to express a positive message about same-sex marriage. With conflicts between same-sex couples and owners of business establishments arising in a number of states, the focus of the nation’s attention was on a New Mexico photographer, a Washington State florist, and a Colorado baker, each of whom sought an exemption from their state’s antidiscrimination law to enable them to exercise their religious tenets against marriage equality. In these cases, the state human rights commissions and the state appellate courts ruled that the antidiscrimination laws outweighed the rights of the business owners to exercise their religious beliefs against marriage equality by refusing to play a role, no matter how limited, in a same-sex marriage ceremony. In June 2018, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, LTD. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the state’s antidiscrimination law that guaranteed equal treatment for same-sex couples in places of public accommodations but reversed the Commission’s ruling against the Colorado baker. In a narrow decision, the Court held that the Commission infringed on the baker’s First Amendment right to free exercise by uttering comments that, in the Court’s view, demonstrated hostility to his sincerely held religious beliefs. The ruling affirmed that society has a strong interest in protecting gay men and lesbians from harm as they engage in the marketplace as well as in respecting sincerely held religious beliefs.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0013189X2094319
Author(s):  
Suzanne E. Eckes

A 2020 lawsuit involves a public school teacher who refused to address transgender students by their preferred names because of his religious beliefs. This case is particularly significant because it is the first K–12 decision that analyzes this matter. This issue has important policy implications for schools and students.


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