Posted on 08/19/2006 3:26:43 PM PDT by Zack Nguyen
More news on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals continued war against reason.
In the case Fields v. Palmdale (November 2, 2005), parents sued the Palmdale School District for giving a survey, which included ten questions of a sexual nature, to students between the ages of seven and ten.
The School District sent a note home to parents asking for parental consent to engage their children in a survey of early trauma. The note did not mention sex.
The School District, collaborating with the School of Psychology and Seymour, developed and administered the questionnaire to first, third, and fifth grade students. According to the decision (p. 15066), "The children were asked to rate the following activities, among others, on a scale from "never" to "almost all the time.""
According to p. 15066 of the Fields decision, the following is a list of the questions included on the student survey:
8. Touching my private parts too much
17. Thinking about having sex
22. Thinking about touching other people's private parts
23. Thinking about sex when I don't want to
26. Washing myself because I feel dirty on the inside
34. Not trusting people because they might want sex
40. Getting scared or upset when I think about sex
44. Having sex feelings in my body
47. Can't stop thinking about sex
54. Getting upset when people talk about sex
According to the decision (p. 15066), "The children were asked to rate the following activities, among others, on a scale from "never" to "almost all the time." Other choice questions included "Wanting to kill myself" and "Wanting to hurt other people."
Seven year olds were asked these questions. The parents of the children learned of the survey questions when their children started telling them about the survey.
Horrified, the parents complained to the school, arguing that had they know the true nature of the survey, they would have never offered their consent. The school district rebuffed the parents, and the parents sued.
The trial court rejected the parents arguments and today, in stunning language, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the rejection. In fact, the Ninth Circuit, in its opinion stated:
We agree, and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children, either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it. We also hold that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students. Finally, we hold that the defendants’ actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose. [Emphasis in original.]
Thanks for your insight. Having worked in politics, my first thought is to wonder how many school board members live in mortal fear of the teacher unions, because teachers and administrators form a huge percentage of total votes.
Of course, if true then people have no one to blame but themselves.
Zack you are absolutely right on that point local officials may be scared of taking on a union and they do wield a lot of power. Still on an issue like this I think the union wouldn't care..this kind of thing comes from pointy heads.. In any case an aware voting public is the best guardian of good government. I know sometimes court decisions can be interpreted in many ways. My own personal grip is when the press reports that overturning Roe v. Wade would outlaw abortion. Roe v. Wade says judges will decide this issue not elected representatives. Overturning Roe v. Wade would merely turn the issue over to state legislature to do as their constituents want.
As a rule of thumb, parents should *never* consent to any survey of their children during school hours. They should even go so far as to include a signed note in their children's school dossier *prohibiting* them from being given surveys without the express written permission of the parent for each and every survey.
First of all, many such surveys are efforts to use children to influence public policy, by cynically manipulating them to lie and give false answers to skewed questions.
Second, even with the best of intentions, a survey does not benefit the child in any way. Instead it takes away from their class time.
Third, the schools and society as a whole suffers when policy is made based on such corrupt survey results. Vast amounts of money are channeled into the educational bureaucracy based on false needs.
Vaster amounts of money are channeled into the pockets of the purveyors of these useless surveys.
What the original federal court judge did, according to the 9th circus opinion, was to recase the original invasion of privacy claim into a due process claim and then ruled that they had no due process claim.
But it is not a due process claim (14th ammendment). It is an unreasonable and warrantless search.
Suppose my 7 year old child checks the always thinking about sex box, having no idea, at age 7, what the question even means. Does this allow the state to subpoena my rental list at the video store or take my child away for suspected child abuse? It is a dangerous road and these parents are quite right to view this as an invasion of privacy.
I opt out every time we get these "surveys"
It is no one's business what goes on in my my house, in my child's heath care and in my child's mind.
That is our jobs as parents.
It is a peeve of mine.
That's why I said the second part of it was nuts.
Here's a different article on a story that I think was posted on this thread last November. It's about the case against the Palmdale School District for giving young children surveys with sex questions without disclosing the nature of the survey to the parents.
If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
I have children in that age range (7-10) who would have no idea whatsoever what those questions are about.
And, if the kids weren't thinking about those things before taking the survey, well, I guess they're thinking about them now. The survey is practically suggesting those things to them.
BTTT
My skin is crawling.
No it isn't. The original federal judge effectively rewrote the complaint to turn a privacy question into a due process question. Putting words into someone's mouth is a liberal's behavior, not a conservative's. Furthermore, it is not conservative to stand back and let one's constitutional rights against unreasonable searches be violated on the grounds that this was done by elected officials. You know as well as I do that the constitution was written to limit the powers of elected officials - even the local school board.
A mild demurral:
You are not yet required to send your child to the government reeducation centers.
You have multiple, legal options to fulfill the law's requirement that your children be educated.
Only the free one requires that they be indoctrinated in perversion and sexualized at age five.
So, the State is not claiming a "right to your child's brain".
They're just charging tuition in a currency other than dollars.
BTTT
This opinion is 100% Marxism. I would expect little else from these Marxists in black robes.
They are reiterating the basic communist tenet that the collective group (teachers) has greater rights than the individual (Parents) in order to maintain and expand the goals of the state, as defined by themselves.
Elitist Marxism sets the societal tone in many areas of the country. It is completely destructive to the family and individual rights.
The recent Zoning Enabling Act passed in Michigan is another example of surging Marxism. The law combines some of the worst abuses of soviet socialism coated with a wafer thin veneer of democracy.
All these communist edicts by the unelected elite are venal monstrosities and a viscious attack on our liberties by entrenched collectivist thugs.
I have no use for these barbarians.
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