Law Commons^™

Verboten: Forbidden Homeschooling In Germany And Its Conflict With International Religious Freedom., Jacob A. Aschmutat

Jacob A Aschmutat

Germany maintains strict compulsory education laws that prevent families from educating their children at home. Germany strictly enforces these laws, with little regard to the families’ incentives to remove their children from the public schools. As such, these laws contain no exemption for families interested in homeschooling for religious purposes. The absence of such an exemption seems to contradict the internationally recognized right to religious freedom, a right concretely granted through three international treaties that Germany has both signed and ratified. Several decisions by the European Court of Human Rights give little to no credence to the notion of religious …

Texas Cheerleaders And The First Amendment: Can You Cheer For God At A Football Game?, Brett A. Geier

Brett A Geier

The Kountze High School Cheerleaders in Kountze, Texas last year placed religious messages on run-through banners at the pre-game ceremonies for its football team. When district officials directed the cheerleaders to cease placing the messages on the banners, the cheerleaders sought relief under the Free Exercise Clause and free speech doctrine. In the spring of 2013, the District Court enjoined the school from preventing the cheerleaders from placing religious messages on the banners stating that the act did not violated the Establishment Clause. This particular case has multiple issues that must be addressed: First Amendment conflict; free speech fora, religious …

Overcoming Obstacles To Religious Exercise In K-12 Education, Lewis M. Wasserman

Lewis M. Wasserman

Overcoming Obstacles to Religious Exercise in K-12 Education Lewis M. Wasserman Abstract Judicial decisions rendered during the last half-century have overwhelmingly favored educational agencies over claims by parents for religious accommodations to public education requirements, no matter what constitutional or statutory rights were pressed at the tribunal, or when the conflict arose. These claim failures are especially striking in the wake of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (“RFRAs”) passed by Congress in 1993 and, to date, by eighteen state legislatures thereafter, since the RFRAs were intended to (1) insulate religious adherents from injuries inflicted by the United States Supreme Court’s …

Tactics, Strategies & Battles—Oh My!: Perseverance Of The Perpetual Problem Regarding Preaching To Public School Pupils & Why It Persists, Casey S. Mckay

Casey Scott McKay

After reviewing the history of the religious war on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, my article, “Tactics, Strategies & Battles—Oh My!: Perseverance of the Perpetual Problem Regarding Preaching to Public School Pupils & Why it Persists,“ examines why such a seemingly well-settled issue survives and, to some extent, succeeds.

First, by exploiting common misconceptions among the American public, lawmakers are able to take advantage of ignorance driven by strong emotions. Next, religious special interests groups, with seemingly unlimited funds, thrust propaganda supported by worldwide media reinforcement on an already vulnerable American public. Thus, irresponsible state legislators, caught between a rock and …

Education As A Counterterrorism Tool And The Curious Case Of The Texas School Book Resolution, Diane Webber

Diane Webber

As a case study, this paper reviews a resolution passed by the Texas State Board of Education on September 24, 2010. The resolution rejects certain Social Studies texts that contain what the Board determined were pro-Islamic/anti-Christian distortions…The resolution is itself doing what it complains about – it is showing “chronic partiality to one of the world’s great religions and animus against another.”…At a time when “reciprocal negative perceptions between the Western and Muslim worlds continue to escalate”, it is essential to acknowledge the important role of education to promote tolerance… The knowledge gained from religious tolerance education can then be …