"When a public school purports to allow students to express themselves, it must respect the students' free speech rights. School administrators may not behave like puppet masters who create the illusion that students are engaging in personal expression when in fact the school administration is pulling the strings."--Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, dissenting from the Court's refusal to hear Nurre v. Whitehead
The First Amendment right to free speech is on life support. And with its recent refusal to review the case of Nurre v. Whitehead, the Supreme Court may have pulled the plug.
Traditionally, the senior members of the woodwind ensemble, the top-performing instrumental group at Henry M. Jackson High School in Snohomish County, Wash., select a piece each year to perform during graduation ceremonies. Having performed Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria" at a public concert in 2004, the seniors in the wind ensemble unanimously chose to perform it again at their graduation ceremony on June 17, 2006, because they felt its aesthetic beauty and peacefulness would be appropriate for the tone of the ceremony.
The student musicians proposed to perform Biebl's piece instrumentally: no lyrics or words would be sung or said, nor did the senior members intend that any lyrics would be printed in ceremony programs or otherwise distributed to members of the audience. However, despite the absence of lyrics, the school superintendent, Carol Whitehead, refused to allow the ensemble to perform "Ave Maria" at their graduation ceremony because she believed the piece to be religious in nature.
Ironically, the superintendent reportedly didn't even know that the words "Ave Maria" are Latin for "Hail Mary." Nevertheless, determined to avoid offense, she banned it, despite the fact that this Biebl version of "Ave Maria" is not one that most people would even recognize
Believing that school authorities had violated her right of free speech, Kathryn Nurre, a student member of the ensemble, turned to the Rutherford Institute, which filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the school in federal district court in June 2006. A year later, a federal district court ruled that the school's actions were "reasonable" in trying to avoid offending anyone.
In a 2-1 ruling that was handed down in September 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals concurred. According to the court, school authorities can deny students' rights to free speech just to keep some of those attending graduation from being offended.
However, in a dissent that is notable for its lucidity, Judge Milan D. Smith insisted that Nurre's right to free speech had been unreasonably violated. "[I]n prohibiting Nurre and her classmates from playing their selected piece of music, the School District misjudged the Establishment Clause's requirements and, in so doing, violated Nurre's First Amendment rights," observed Smith. He continued:
I am concerned that, if the majority's reasoning on this issue becomes widely adopted, the practical effect will be for public school administrators to chill -- or even kill -- musical and artistic presentations by their students in school-sponsored limited public fora where those presentations contain any trace of religious inspiration, for fear of criticism by a member of the public, however extreme that person's views may be. The First Amendment neither requires nor condones such a result. The taking of such unnecessary measures by school administrators will only foster the increasingly sterile and hypersensitive way in which students may express themselves in such fora, and hasten the retrogression of our young into a nation of Philistines, who have little or no understanding of our civic and cultural heritage.
In an attempt to avoid offending anyone, America's public schools have increasingly adopted a zero tolerance attitude towards religious expression. The courts have not helped, allowing schools the discretion to let an offended minority control a cowed majority. Such politically correct thinking has resulted in a host of inane actions, from the Easter Bunny being renamed "Peter Rabbit" to Christmas Concerts being dubbed "Winter" Concerts and some schools even outlaw the colors red and green, saying they're Christmas colors. And now, simply because someone is offended by the title, students cannot play music that has no words and is performed with no religious intent.
What school officials and the courts fail to understand is that by sanitizing the schools of anything remotely related to religion, they are not only silencing an entire segment of the population; they are also contributing to a cultural wasteland bereft of a rich heritage of Western art, music and literature -- all of which, at one time or another, has been greatly influenced by religion.
Religion is such an innate part of American culture that it would be impossible to create a strictly secular course of study for students. To put this in perspective, consider the following.
If someone complains about Michelangelo's art because it was so often themed on Christianity, does this mean that we are supposed to have art history books without the Sistine Chapel? What about other masterpieces such as Da Vinci's The Last Supper? For that matter, what about great writers such as Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, or Edgar Allen Poe?
Some of Western civilization's greatest music was inspired by religion or created for a religious purpose, composed by such maestros as J.S. Bach, Wolfgang Mozart, and Joseph Haydn. Even contemporary artists could find their music banned in schools under such a rubric. For example, the Beatles are visited by Mother Mary in "Let it Be"; Led Zeppelin writes of a "Stairway to Heaven"; and even Jon Bon Jovi sings about "Livin' on a Prayer." Such a course of action would reduce American culture and arts education to a sterile wasteland.
Just as with religion, art has always been a matter of personal experience. Each person brings their own experiences and interpretations to art, rendering it nearly impossible to establish a litmus test for what constitutes "religious art" as opposed to secular art.
Anyone who has ever appreciated a book, painting, symphony, or even newspaper article, movie, or television show should be repulsed at the idea of government officials dictating what art is -- and, more importantly, what it is not. Anyone who has ever appreciated even a comic book should cringe at the thought of letting the government control it.
This brings us back to the Supreme Court's refusal to review the ruling in Nurre. We are witnessing the emergence of an unstated yet court-sanctioned right, one that makes no appearance in the Constitution and yet seems to trump the First Amendment at every turn: the right to not be offended. Yet there is no way to completely avoid giving offense. At some time or other, someone is going to take offense at something someone else says or does. It's inevitable.
Each time we allow political correctness to triumph over our constitutional freedoms and basic common sense, we are complicit in undermining the freedoms on which this nation was built. And in a case such as that of Nurre v. Whitehead, we will destroy our culture as well.
Follow John W. Whitehead on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rutherford_inst
Matthew Milliner: The Return of the Religious in Contemporary Art
Menachem Wecker: Was Abraham Misogynistic?
Jordan Sekulow: Protecting Students' Rights to Religious Expression
Since you're obviously looking for an argument: You assume that this "rich heritage" of yours is so much more important than everyone else's heritage that our public schools need to subject children to it. No, I do not want any children of mine learning about your Christian religious holidays or being inundated with your rich heritage of Christianity. Sorry. The religions in this country were originally Native American. Then the Christians came. By the 1950's, citizens were afraid to admit they were anything but Christians. By then our country was under the pall of Christian fundamentalism: even our Pledge of Allegiance was altered to exclude all who weren't Christian, and by the 90's, your 10 Commandments and Jesus billboards were spread out all over public areas. Then you started taking over our schools, even altering history to meet your requirements.
Today, despite the best efforts of missionaries and special interest groups, American children entering school are Native American, atheist, agnostic, Wicca, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Druid, Jain, Sikh, and you name it. Only a minority in many areas are Christian. So no, we do not want you thrusting your religion at our children anymore.
Still, my child should not be forced to participate in singing god bless america....... It is the application of reason and balance that is missing in this dialogue - sadly as it seems to be in many SC cases of late.
No lyrics, no religious message, the ensemble was playing the music for the sake of the piece of music.
Ignorance? How about the administrator not know the meaning of "Ave Maria"????
I do so hope that the ensemble chose not to play anything at all.
Do you wish the same freedom of speech for Atheists, Agnostics, Pantheists, and Deists, Mr. Whitehead? Because, if you do, that would give a valedictorian the right to read quotes from Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" during his or her commencement speech, now wouldn't it?
If you're okay with valedictorians sharing their admiration of Paine, then I'm ready to hear "Ave Maria" at the same graduation ceremony. Deal?
Be prepared though. The Christian Mythologist response to the aforementioned commencement speech would, of course, be something like, "But, but, but, that's defamation, blasphemy, I tell ya! Get that nonsense out of our schools right this instance, you science lovin' heathens. Say Hallelujah!"
Art is art. A student painting Jesus is as valid as a student painting a landscape. Either painting may be presented in a student art show.
Religious themed music has been performed in our schools forever. And invocations at graduation ceremonies, and before sporting events.
Yet until "Under God" is removed on an official basis I have no sympathy nor empathy towards those who wish, individually, or as a group, to perform music with a religious background.
Seperation of Church and State needs to be respected as well as free speech. You hamper one, might as well hamper the other.
Aslo, the question in my mind remains, what if all the students but one wanted to perform this number? The one against having no interest in performing religions scores? Would he or she be pressured into performing it? Get a failing grade for not?
Hint: There is a difference between a group having a performance that is neither compulsory nor expected and having that same performance in a time when people are required or expected to attend. Graduation ceremonies are not the same as other gatherings and thus, the rules for how to carry them out are not the same.
A student should not have to sit through a religious performance in order to graduate.
And typically, it seems the author of this article doesn't understand what the word "irony" means. It is not "ironic" that "Ave Maria" means "Hail Mary" in Latin. On the contrary, that is precisely the point: The song is religious. Exactly who does the author think the "Maria" in the title is referring to? The lead character in "West Side Story"? Let us not pretend that we have accepted Justice Stevens' argument that the word "god" doesn't actually mean "god."
The Ninth Circuit's opinion was spot on. And in typical fashion, Scalia's response show that he is incompetent. It is trivial to create strictly secular course for students. This doesn't mean that religion or god is never mentioned. History is not advocacy.
And I have to say -- and I'm sorry if this offends you -- that if you really are afraid that listening to religiously-inspired music will somehow cause your child to become completely brain-washed, then you are a terrible parent.
A good parent exposes his (or her) child to the wide and rich diversity of the world. And when that diversity contains things which which the parent disagrees, it's a chance to have a conversation about it. "What do you think of that? What do you think the message was? Let me give you my view...."
For a good parent, this is a fantastic opportunity for you to teach your child YOUR values, to explain to your child what the music meant, and how you DIS-agree.
But instead, you are trying to shut out the world. How will this serve your child in the long-run? Do you really think your child will NEVER be exposed to these things later? Isnt' it better that it happen when you are around, when you can talk to them about it?
Playing an instrumental version of Ave Maria probably doesn't violate the Establishment Clause for two reasons-no lyrics, and there is a nod to the Christian influence on Western arts that gets an exemption. Most western art for centuries was Christian-inspired, and we cannot throw away that rich cultural history in order to sanitize schools of religion. In fact, the Christian influence on art is something that can be discussed in the analysis of that art-how The Church was and still is a major repository for wealth and power in the western world, etc...
On the other hand, "Christmas Concerts" and the "Easter Bunny" DO violate the establishment clause becasue they blatently label a school-sponsored event with a name that includes the name of a religious holiday. As an attourney I would have hoped he could see the qualitative difference. Maybe he ought to review the sylabus for Constitutional Law 1-that's where I, as a social studies teacher, learned how to see that difference.
Now, playing it as part of a music class is one thing. Competent music instruction requires studying the body of work and that includes religious music.
When did a graduation ceremony become a class on music history?
Freedom of religion requires freedom from religion. The author assumes that he has the right to declare his faith anywhere and everywhere, and he doesn't. The problem isn't a question of a "right not to be offended." The problem is that people are finally pointing out that what he's doing is unethical at the least and is actually unconstitutional. But since it's been done for so long, he's mistakenly assuming that it's OK.
Hint: It isn't the lead character in "West Side Story."
Ergo, how could its performance at a graduation ceremony be something other than "endorsement"?
You do not have the right to preach at me, no matter how subtly.
I have the right to stand on a soap box and shout out everything i hold good, right and true.
But i must deal with the fact that anyone else may do the same. even if what they hold right, good and true is what i have spent my life fighting against.
Its America, sometimes you get offended.
Freedom of speech is not absolute and some venues and methods are disallowed.
A student cannot be forced to sit through a religious statement in order to graduate, no matter how subtle.