Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1978

Publication Information

1978 BYU L.Rev. 847 (1978)

Abstract

The Christian school movement is the logical outgrowth of the dissatisfaction of some parents, particularly some fundamentalist Baptists, with what they regard as excessive secularism in the public schools. The controversy has already produced some definitive litigation, but much remains unsettled. On the one hand, public authorities contend the public school is truly neutral toward religion. Compulsory attendance laws and other regulations by the state of private education are seen as legitimate measures, pursuant to the police power, to achieve a minimal level of intellectual and civic competence among the young. On the other hand, objecting parents and pastors regard the public schools not as areligious and authentically neutral, but rather as centers for the promotion of a competing faith. That faith, usually called secular humanism or some variant thereof, is regarded by them as destructive of the religious faith of their children and students. When parents withdraw their children from public schools, they see the state's regulation of their Christian schools as an effort to deprive those schools of their authentic Christian character. In their tactics of confrontation, they are much more implacable than the supporters of traditional private and parochial schools.

The purpose of this Article is to examine the claims of Christian and other parents who object to what they see as an improper religion of secularism in the public schools; to evaluate the remedies available to those parents; and to inquire as to how, if at all, their legitimate interests and those of the state can be reconciled.

Comments

Reprinted with permission of the Brigham Young University Law Review.

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