From: rocky@NeoSoft.com (Joe Mullally)
Subject: Re: Bush Vetoes Stupid Education Reform Bill
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Distribution: tx
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:00:16 GMT

In article <21824@rpp386.lonestar.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>	"In 1962, however, the [ Supreme ] Court decided that prayer in
>	 classrooms is unconstitutional.  Since then, with the federal
>	 judiciary as their guide, school authorities have told youngsters
>	 they cannot sit together at their lunch hour and read the Bible,
>	 say grace over their meals or discuss religion.  A handicapped
>	 girl in Texas was ordered not to use her rosary on a school bus.
>	 A Denver teacher was ordered to cease reading his Bible silently
>	 during his class reading period and to remove the book from his
>	 desk.
>
>	 ...
>
>	 "And at the North Clayton (Ga.) Junior High School, drama, math,
>	  science and chess clubs assembled.  But the 60-member Youth for
>	  Christ Club, which always met after school, was expelled from
>	  campus after a lawsuite was filed through the American Civil
>	  Liberties Union (ACLU). ..."

	


(Pretty long)
From "America" magazine, Apr. 28, 1990
	The Equal Access Act "evolved" from a Supreme Court decision, 1981,
Widmar v. Vincent, in which the Court held that the Univ. of Missouri @ K.C.
couldn't deny a religious group the same access it granted to over 100
secular groups. Some basics about the Act are:
-The group must be student-initiated.
-The group must be non-school-sponsored.
-The group must not be supervised by a teacher.
-There is no sanction against non-compliant schools (the Act cannot be enforced
 by the Federal Gov't by means of withholding $). Non-compliant schools can
 (and have been) be sued, in order to force compliance.

Cases that have arisen:
(Gaylon) Clark v. Dallas ISD
Federal Court sided with the ISD. The case:
	Mr. Clark's group (Christian) began as  6 students meeting to discuss
religion. It soon escalated to the point that anywhere from 60 to 150 people
would show up. The originator (Clark) transformed the group from an outlet
for collective prayer into a body that distributed religious pamphlets "urging
students to dedicate their lives to Jesus".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mergens v. West Side Community Schools, Nebraska
	A 9 member religious group was denied access to a room after school.
The Federal judge in Nebraska sided with the school. His decision was 
reversed by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. As of Apr. 90, the case was
slated to go before the Supreme Court. 
Yet, this, and the next magazine article, seem to agree that the issue may
never have a true precedent.
	The above was a synopsis, more or less. Below, two direct quotes
from the article:
"With Equal Access, Congress sought to circumvent those bans on religious
exercises on which the Supreme Court has been firm for 40 years." and:
"There is no evidence of enthusiasm or even interest in the Equal Access 
Act in the Catholic community. And the earnest educators, church people, and
parents who would be very happy to see a program for teaching about
religion in the public schools do not see in the E.A. Act a way to achieve
their objective." 

From "Christian Century" magazine, Nov. 29, 1989:
"A common misconception ... is that the Supreme Court 'removed God from the
schools.' In fact, the Court mandated that religious expression in public
schools could neither be initiated nor sponsored by the gov't". and:
"While continuing to rule against religious expression when it is percieved
to be sponsored by the gov't, such as in the recent Pittsburg Creche' case,
the Court has tended, over the past decade, to support religious speech in
public education when initiated by students rather than by the state, in the
1981 case of Widmar v. Vincent, for example." and:
"Equal Access, per se, has not yet been tested in the Supreme Court." and:
"In a pluralistic society, bringing religion into a classroom can amount to
coerced participation."
 
From "Time" magazine, June 18, 1990:
"To Bridget Mergens Mayhew, the idea of forming an extracurricular Christian
club at Omaha's Westside High School 5 years ago seemed simple enough. 'There
are a lot of pressures on kids,'she recalls,'and we just wanted to get 
together annd pray.' But school authorities turned down her plea, fearing it
would violate the seperation of church and state. The refusal touched off a 
fractious legal battle that last week culminated in a spectacular win for
Mayhew and her friends; a major decision from the U.S. Supreme Court barring
discrimination against voluntary religious clubs in public high schools.

By an 8-to-1 vote, the high bench upheld the constitutionality of Congress's
1984 Equal Access Act. The measure says that no public secondary school
recieving federal funds may bar student clubs on the basis of their 
'religious, political, or philosophical' views, if the school permits one
or more 'noncurriculum' groups to meet after school hours.

Justice John Paul Stevens lambasted the decision in his lone dissent."



-- 
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Joe Mullally (rocky@sugar.neosoft.com) PH:713-681-2495
"We need stronger death penalties..." George Bush, debate #2