Posted on 08/28/2006 11:30:26 AM PDT by Borges
CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Aug. 26 (UPI) -- Vashti McCollum, the plaintiff in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on religion in public schools, has died at 93 Champaign, Ill.
McCollum challenged the religious education classes in the Champaign public schools. Her son, James, then in fifth grade, was required to attend a class against his will.
In her lawsuit, McCollum argued that the classes were discriminatory because those for Protestants were held at the schools while classes for Catholics and Jews were held elsewhere. She lost in the state courts but won an 8-1 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.
"The First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other in its respective sphere," Justice Hugo Black wrote, establishing the principle that freedom of religion means more than treating all religions equally, The New York Times reported.
The unintended consequences of this decision has haunted America ever since...
What business does a public school have teaching Christianity?
> What business does a public school have teaching Christianity?
Didn't you know? America is a Christian Nation, and the role of government is to teach the glories of Christ at each and every opportunity.
Or so I'm told.
> What business does a public school have teaching Christianity?
Didn't you know? America is a Christian Nation, and the role of government is to teach the glories of Christ at each and every opportunity.
Or so I'm told.
What business does the government have recognizing Christmas or having one swear on a Bible in court?
Oh yeah, I forgot that all of the founding fathers were deists or atheists.
http://www.clss.com/mccollum/vashti2.jpg
Vashti was to live up to her namesake when she and her oldest son, Jim, were confronted with pressure to enroll him in a Christian Sunday school type class that was being offered in the public schools of Champaign during school hours. Resisting the pressure at first, she and her husband eventually relented and allowed Jim to attend the classes the balance his 4th grade year. However, the following year, the MCCollums, feeling that such a program was totally inappropriate in the public schools, refused further participation. This, of course, resulted in Jim taking heat from his peers and suffering some indignities at the hands of his unenlightened 5th grade teacher.
After unrequited attempts to have the program discontinued administratively and after much soul searching, with the aid and support of the Rev. Phillip Schug, the Unitarian minister in town, and with financial assistance from a group of Jewish businessmen in Chicago, she filed a writ of mandamus in the Champaign County Circuit Court in the late summer of 1945. At this point things really became rough for the MCCollums, ranging from physical confrontations between Jim and his peers, to vandalism of their home, to attempts at terminating Prof. MCCollum’s employment at the university. Fortunately, for Dr. MCCollum, his tenured status secured his position with the university. However, Vashti’s employment as an adjunct instructor in the women’s physical education program, was terminated.
The three judge panel, sitting to hear the case in the Circuit Court, decided that, in spite of the clear language in the Illinois constitution to the contrary, the practice violated neither it nor the establishment of religion clause of the 1st Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. The Illinois Supreme Court agreed with the lower court and the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which granted certiorari in the fall of 1947. 50 years ago, on 9 March 1948, the US Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in the Peo. of the State of Illinois, ex rel MCCollum -v- Board of Education, 333 US 203 (1948), in a decision, written by Justice Hugo L. Black, that was to become a landmark case in U.S. constitutional law. The significance of the decision was that it was the first case of impression that held the several states accountable to the strictures of the establishment of religion clause of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution under the aegis of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. All cases, involving school prayers, aid to parochial schools, sectarian religious displays on public property and other such incursions into Jefferson's wall of "separation of church and state" by the states and their municipalities, descend from this case.
http://tinyurl.com/g4eva
with the aid and support of the Rev. Phillip Schug, the Unitarian minister in town, and with financial assistance from a group of Jewish businessmen in Chicago
The government should not be involved in education. All schools, K-12, colleges, grad schools...should be private.
You can avoid the Bible swearing in Federal Courts. Not sure about state courts. Federal employees can swap Christmas holidays for other paid time off. Reasonable accomodations of religion are possible, but it's funny to see how many advocate "teaching" Christianity in public schools. Considering the inter- and intra-denominational disagreements that are so common, one wonders how the curriculum would be divined...
Yes, some people forget that the religious views of a person who creates something are magically transmitted to the thing created. That's why all those Japanese cars you see driving around are just *shouting* that they are Shinto.
Are you defending the mandatory attendence of children in a "Sunday School-like class" in a public school? Or is the fact that "Jews" were involved bother you more?
>>>What business does a public school have teaching Christianity?<<<
Ask the "father" (founder) of public schools in America. He should know. His name was Horace Mann, and this is what one source wrote about him:
"[Mann] believed children in public schools should be taught the ethical principles common across Christianity but not those doctrines about which different sects disagreed." (http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/horacemann.html)
That principle of Mann was still in existence when I attended public school during the 1950's and 1960's.
What business does a public school have teaching FISTING?!!! I would rather my child learn about GOD instead of homosexual activities and how to put on a condom.
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are not mere material objects but documents that were written to govern real live people based on laws, philosophy, ideals, etc...so your comparison is void.
Sounds good to me.
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