LEST 401
RELIGION, LAW, AND POLITICS
WINTER 2005
Joan DelFattore
Class hours: TR 5-9
062 Memorial Hall
Office hours: By appointment
831-2987 (office)
E-mail: jdel@udel.edu
737-7124 (home and fax)
Homepage: www.english.udel.edu/jdel
DESCRIPTION:
Participants in this course will
• explore the historical developments, constitutional
principles, and evolution of ideas underlying current disputes over church/state
relations in the U.S.
• discuss a variety of specific church/state issues, such
as religious objections to instructional materials, government-sponsored displays
of religious artifacts, laws prejudicial to certain religions (e.g., prohibitions
on polygamy or animal sacrifice), and public mockery of religious figures.
• engage in an in-depth consideration of church/state
disputes in the public schools, such as prayer at sporting events, graduation
invocations, religious clubs, and Bible classes
• apply this information to an independent research project
in which students will demonstrate both an understanding of a particular aspect
of church/state relations and an ability to relate that topic to the larger
themes of the course.
TEXTS:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Joan DelFattore, The Fourth R: Conflicts Over Religion in America’s
Public Schools (Yale,
2004).
Arthur Miller, The Crucible, any paperback edition.
Students will also be required to access Supreme Court decisions and other
material online and print it out. Students who do not have their own
computers, printers, and Internet access are welcome to use any of the computing
sites on campus. If any student does not know how to do Internet research,
please either see me or seek help from the staff at the computing centers.
ATTENDANCE POLICY:
The schedule for this class involves a tradeoff. On the one hand, students
receive
three credits for a class that meets only twice a week for five weeks.
On the other hand, each class meeting is four hours long, which means that
missing even one of them is comparable to missing more than a week of classes
in a regular semester. Absences will therefore be excused only in cases
of serious illness or family emergencies. Car trouble, arguments with
significant others, hangovers, social events, ennui, the need to catch up
on work or sleep, appearances on the Jerry Springer Show, or abduction by
creatures from another planet are not justifications for excused absences.
(Students may argue that the last two are redundant.) Moaning about
the four-hour periods is optional but immature, since they are part of an
arrangement whose benefits you are also enjoying. Arriving late and
leaving early are not options except under unusual circumstances.
To avoid a lot of grief, please do not remain in this course if your work
schedule, ride home, or social life will not allow you to meet these standards.
You will lose four points from your final grade for each unexcused absence,
and if an oral report was due that day, you will not have the option of making
it up at another time.
GRADING:
Seven written/oral assignments @ 9 points each:
63 points
Final paper:
37 points
All work must be typed. Handwritten work will not be accepted.
No assignment in this course is intended merely to be handed in to the instructor.
The written/oral assignments due in most class periods will be shared in-class
as part of that day’s
activities. For this reason, students who hand in written work after
an unexcused absence will receive no more than 5 out of the possible 9 points
for the assignment.
Final grade: 95-100 = A, 90-94 = A-, 87-89 = B+, 83-86 = B, 80-82
= B-, 77-79 = C+,
73-76 = C, 70-72 = C-, 67-69 = D+, 63-66 = D, 60-62 = D-, 0-59 = F
The university’s academic honesty policy, available at http://udcatalog.udel.edu/general/undergrad/ugregs.html#honest,
will be applied in this course. Please be sure you’re familiar with
it. In particular, please note that if you print material from the Internet
or copy it from a printed work, the source of that material must be clearly
indicated. If it isn’t and I find it (not impossible, as I’ve been
researching and teaching this topic for many years), you will lose fifteen
points for failing to follow accepted academic standards for writing papers
in seminars, and you will be subject to sanctions imposed by the Office of
Judicial Affairs for academic dishonesty.
SCHEDULE
NOTE TO STUDENTS:
Because of a professional commitment, I will have to be away during the
first week of this course. Professor Sheldon Pollack, Director of the
Legal Studies Program, will teach the first class. He will also pink-slip
students into the course at his discretion.
The second class period will be conducted as an online
lesson. I’ve prepared a written lecture which can be found at the url
below, together with other online assignments for that class period.
I realize that it is not ideal to begin the work for the course in the instructor’s
absence, but I’ve deliberately started off with an assignment that requires
no previous knowledge and that should give you no trouble. If you have
any questions, please resolve them in a way that makes sense to you and then
talk with me when you come back. I assure you that no one will lose
any credit in the course because of any problem arising from my being away.
When I return on Tues., Jan. 11, we’ll start off with a lecture/discussion
based on the work you’ve already done and then go on with the course from
there.
I look forward to seeing you on Jan. 11.
Tues., Jan. 4: Introduction to the course
Introduction to the federal court system
This class, taught by Professor Sheldon Pollack, is based on Chapter 2 of
Henry R.
Cheeseman’s Business Law (5th ed.), Prentice
Hall, 2004. Students who miss this
class (including those who enroll in the course late) will be required to
catch up
with the rest of the class by reading
this chapter. The book is on reserve in Morris
Library.
Thurs., Jan. 6: Religiously Based Challenges to Instructional Materials
1
Class will not meet today. Instead, please go to
http://www.english.udel.edu/jdel/textbooks.html.
Read my lecture on textbook
censorship, paying particular attention to controversies based on religion.
Then
do BOTH of the following online assignments:
a. Go into Yahoo! or another browser of
your choice and find websites that
deal with the controversy over evolution and creationism. Go
into two
websites that are favorable to evolution and two that are favorable
to
creationism. Select websites that are put up by organizations
– e.g., the
National Center for Science Education and the Institute for Creation
Research – rather than by any individual. Summarize briefly
what you find on each site.
Which arguments do you find most convincing? Why?
b. Go to www.amazon.com. Look up Heather Has Two
Mommies, Daddy’s
Roommate, or Nappy Hair, and click on “product details.”
Scroll down the
page to the editorial reviews (i.e., professional published reviews)
and then to
customer reviews. Print out any two of the editorial reviews
and any six of the
customer reviews and write answers to the questions below. Please
remember
that all papers for this course must be typed, double-spaced.
This assignment
should be about two pages long. Are the professional reviews
you selected
generally positive or negative? What are the two or three main
reasons for
either praise or criticism? What about the customer reviews
– do most people
whose comments you read like the book or not? What are the main
reasons
they give for either liking or disliking the book? If any of
the reviews you read
include really good quotes, please mark them so you can share them
with the
class.
Tues., Jan. 11: Religiously Based Challenges to Instructional Materials
2
Review of Cheeseman/Pollack material from Jan. 4
Discussion of the online lecture on textbook censorship
Discussion of creationism/evolution
Discussion of the reviews of Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s
Roommate, and Nappy Hair
In-class reading and discussion of Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s
Roommate, and Nappy Hair
Discussion of the religious basis of objections to these books and the implications
for legal and social policy
Documentary: Censorship in Our Schools (re Mozert v. Hawkins
County)
Discussion of Mozert
Mini-lecture on the religion clauses and the principles governing contemporary
church-state law, including the Lemon, endorsement, and coercion tests
Assignment of Establishment Clause cases to read for the next class:
* Larkin v. Grendel’s Den (Can a city allow churches to determine
whether
alcohol may be sold within 500 feet of church property?)
* Marsh v. Chambers (Can Congress and state legislatures
appoint and pay chaplains to pray before legislative sessions?);
* Newdow v. U.S. (Can the state make the Pledge of Allegiance,
including
the phrase “under God,” part of the official school day?)
* Alleghany v. ACLU (Can a county erect its own Nativity scene
and permit
the display of a cross and a menorah on county property?)
* Epperson v. Arkansas (Can a state prohibit the teaching of
evolution?)
Assignment for next class: Go to the web browser of your choice and
type in
the name of the case you signed up for. Be sure to spell all the words
correctly. Locate the U.S. Supreme Court decision in this case, read
it, and
type answers to the following questions:
* What was the case about?
Who sued whom, and why?
* Who won?
* What were the two or three
most important issues that led
to the decision?
* What legal test(s) were used
to determine the outcome?
* What did the decision say about
each of those issues?
* In your opinion, who
should have won the case? Why?
Thurs., Jan. 13: Establishment Clause 1: Current Policies
Review of Establishment Clause principles
Small-group work to prepare panel presentations
Presentations on Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Marsh v. Chambers,
Newdow v.
U.S., Alleghany v. ACLU, Epperson
v. Arkansas
Assignments handed in
Mini-lecture on the history of church/state relations in America, with particular
reference to colonial-era theocracies
Choice of a real-life accused witch to research for next class: Giles Corey,
Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor, or Tituba.
Film clip: The Crucible
Assignment for next class: Read Arthur Miller’s
The Crucible. Then go online
to Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, The Salem
Witch Trials
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/texts/transcripts.html.
This site
contains original court transcripts and other material
from the Salem witch trials,
which Miller used as a primary source for The Crucible.
Because the witch trials
took place in the 17th century, the language is somewhat
archaic, but you should
be able to understand it. The material is organized in
three volumes alphabetically by the name of the accused person. Click
on the appropriate volume, scroll down
to the character you signed up for, and read whatever material appears under
that person’s name. Do your best to understand it, no matter how odd
it may seem to you. Then type one or two pages answering
these questions:
* Specifically what was
the accused person supposed to have done?
*
What evidence was offered in support of those allegations?
*
What defense or rejoinder (if any) did the accused offer?
*
What role did religious beliefs play in the legal proceedings?
*
Specifically how does the use of religion in the Salem witch trials differ
from
the present-day Establishment Clause tests and rules we’ve been discussing?
Tues., Jan. 18: Establishment Clause 2: Literary
and Historical Perspectives
Discussion of The Crucible
Small-group work to prepare presentations on the accused Salem witches
Panel presentations of the Salem material
Assignments handed in
Discussion of the contrast between the historical events in Salem and today’s
Establishment Clause jurisprudence
Mini-lecture on the Free Exercise Clause, including the concept of compelling
state interest and the distinction between belief and practice
Review of Supreme Court oral argument procedures
Audiotape: Supreme Court oral argument in Employment Division v.
Smith (excerpts)
Discussion of oral argument
Students sign up to read one of the following Free Exercise cases:
* West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (Can the
state force
schoolchildren to salute the flag?)
* Reynolds v. U.S. (Can the state forbid the practice
of polygamy if it is part
of someone’s religion?
* Employment Division v. Smith (Can the state prohibit
the use of controlled
substances in religious ceremonies?)
* Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah (Can a city prohibit
Santerian
animal sacrifice?)
* Wisconsin v. Yoder (Can the state require Amish schoolchildren
to attend
school past the eighth grade in violation of their religious beliefs?)
Assignment for next class: Go to the web browser of your choice and
type in
the name of the case you signed up for. Be sure to spell all the words
correctly. Locate the U.S. Supreme Court decision in this case, read
it, and
type answers to the following questions:
* What was the case about?
Who sued whom, and why?
* Who won?
* What were the two or three
most important issues that led
to the decision?
* What legal test(s) were used
to determine the outcome?
* What did the decision say about
each of those issues?
* In your opinion, who
should have won the case? Why?
Thurs., Jan. 20: Free Exercise Clause
Review of Free Exercise principles
Small-group work to prepare panel presentations on the selected cases
Panel presentations on West Virginia State Board of Education v.
Barnette,
Reynolds v. U.S, Employment Division v. Smith, Church
of Lukumi Babalu
Aye v. Hialeah, Wisconsin v. Yoder
Assignments handed in
Go over requirements for the final papers
Mini-lecture on religion in public schools
Documentary: Battle Over the Blackboard
Assignment for next class: Read Chapters 1-3, 5-6 of The Fourth
R and type
answers to the following
questions:
* Why is Chapter One entitled “Crucible”? How does this fit with
Arthur
Miller’s use of that word as the title of his play?
* Why is Chapter Three entitled “Religion as a Team Sport”? Why
could that
title also have been used for Chapter Two? Base your answer on specific
examples of incidents discussed in those chapters.
* Identify two similarities and two differences between Engel v.
Vitale and
Abington v. Schempp.
Tues., Jan. 25: When the Establishment Clause Meets the Free Exercise
Clause
Review of current church/state
principles and their application to public schools
Discussion of “Crucible” and “Religion as a Team Sport” titles
Discussion of nineteenth-century disputes over the Bible in the public schools
Mini-lecture on state court decisions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries (from Chapter 4, which was not assigned)
Discussion of the 1960s school-prayer cases
Audiotape: Supreme Court oral argument in Abington v. Schempp
(excerpts)
Discussion of the issues in Abington
Assignment for next class: Read Chapters 10-14 of The Fourth R
and answer
the following questions:
* Why does the Equal
Access Act pertain to all speech, not just to religious
speech?
* Are moments of silence for prayer or reflection legal in public schools?
* How did the lawyers’ strategies affect the outcome of Lee v. Weisman?
Thurs., Jan. 27: When the Religion Clauses Meet the Free Speech
Clause
Discussion of current policies governing moments of silence, religious clubs
in
public schools, and graduation
prayer
Documentary: School Prayer: A Community
at War (re Herdahl v. Pontotoc
County)
Discussion of documentary
Discussion of Widmar v. Vincent and the differences between universities
and
K-12 public schools with respect to religious expression
Mini-lecture on Keegan v. University of Delaware, Rosenberger v.
Rector, and
Southworth v. Wisconsin
Assignment for next class: Read Chapters 15 and 16 of The Fourth
R and
answer the following questions:
* How did the Istook
and Hyde amendments differ?
* Give
three specific examples of the effect of Columbine and 9/11 on religion
in public schools
Tues., Feb. 1: Discuss the Istook and Hyde amendments, the posting
of the Ten Commandments
and other religious artifacts in public schools, and the effects of current
events
on religion in the public schools
Documentary: We the People, Part I: Free to Believe
Critique the documentary based on the material in this course. Is the
information
it offers accurate? Complete? Why or why not?
Thurs., Feb. 3: Peer editing of final papers
Group work to prepare joint presentations on the various cases
Panel presentations
Final papers handed in
.
DIRECTIONS FOR PAPER ASSIGNMENT
I. Choosing a Decision
Your paper should focus on one of the Supreme Court decisions listed below.
If you would prefer to write about a different Supreme Court decision having
to do with church/state issues, please talk with me about it. First,
though, you should check LEXIS to be sure that the news stories you will need
to write this paper are available for the case you are considering.
It would also be a good idea to read through the decision before you propose
it, since some of those I omitted from this list are unusually difficult or
require extensive background knowledge.
Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001). The Boy Scouts,
Girl Scouts, and 4-H Club met in a school building after school hours.
A local pastor argued that school officials were thereby obliged to allow
him to conduct a children’s Bible club in the school library on the same
terms.
Santa Fe v. Doe (2000): Parents challenged the practice of
broadcasting student-led prayers over the loudspeaker system before public
high school football games.
Note: the first of two district court opinions in this case does not
appear on LEXIS, but its gist can be inferred from the second of the two opinions,
which does appear.
Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994) The Supreme Court
was asked to decide whether the State of New York could carve out a public
school district whose pupils were all, or nearly all, members of a particular
group of Hasidic Jews, thus effectively giving control of the district to
members of that religious community.
Virginia v. Black (2003): The Ku Klux Klan challenged a Virginia
statute that not only forbade the burning of crosses for the purpose of intimidation,
but also stated that cross-burning was in and of itself evidence of the intent
to intimidate.
II. Collecting Additional Material
1. Go to the UD Library homepage and select Databases, then Lexis/Nexis
Academic, then Get a Case. Read all of the decisions in your case in
chronological order – trial court, appeals court(s), Supreme Court.
There may be more than one decision at a given level; include any that are
substantive, but ignore those that are merely procedural (e.g., decisions
that do no more than grant permission to file a brief). Note that Lexis/Nexis
lists Supreme Court decisions first, then appeals courts, then trial courts,
so you should start at the bottom of the list and work your way up.
You can read the decisions online, taking careful notes, but it would probably
be easier to print them out so you can underline, write in the margin, etc.
Some of the decisions may be lengthy, so choose an appropriate time and place
for printing. If printing is a problem for you but you want a hard copy,
print out just the first page of each decision. A reference librarian
or I can show you how to find them in reference books in the library, and
you can then photocopy them. Be advised that this procedure is likely
to be both time-consuming and expensive.
* Suggestion: After you choose a case, skim through all of the
decisions online before doing anything else to be sure that you really want
to work on this particular topic. Otherwise, you could either waste
a lot of time or end up doing a project in which you aren’t really interested.
2. Go back to the LEXIS homepage and select News and then General
News. Print out seven to ten newspaper articles about the case.
If the same story appears in more than one newspaper – e.g., Associated Press
stories are often picked up by many papers – use the one that has the highest
word count. (The word count appears in the listing of the story.)
Be aware that the same story will have different headlines in different newspapers.
Try to find a variety of stories that cover the period before, during, and
after the dispute goes to court. The purpose is to get a sense of the
events and personalities behind the legal case. You might also want
to use editorials and letters to the editor as an indication of community
sentiment.
III. Writing the Paper
General Specifications:
1. The paper must be typed, double-spaced, in 12-point
font. It should be approximately 12-15 pages in length.
2. Copies of the news stories must be attached. Do not attach
copies of any decisions; I already have all of them.
3. There should be no footnotes; cite all references in parentheses
following each quotation. It does not matter what format you use as
long as you are consistent throughout the paper. You do not have to
include a Works Cited page.
Detail:
1. Using news articles and background information
from the lower court decisions, write approximately two pages explaining how
this dispute arose. What caused it? Who were the main players?
Why did it end up in court instead of being settled amicably? How did
other members of the community feel about it?
2. Write approximately one to two pages about each
of the lower court decisions (not one to two pages total). Your summary
of each decision should not attempt to cover every point the court raised.
Omit any part of the decision that was based on a procedural question, such
as whether someone had standing to sue; just concentrate on the church/state
issues. Be sure that your summary clearly answers the following questions:
Who won? What were the two or three most important church/state issues
that caused the court to rule the way it did? What did the court say
about each of them?
3. Write approximately three pages explaining the
Supreme Court’s decision. Who won? By how many votes? What
were the most important reasons that caused the majority of the Court to vote
as it did? If there was a dissent, what were the most important reasons
for it?
4. Write approximately two pages of commentary
on the case you have just analyzed. How does this particular case fit
into the bigger picture of church/state issues? How significant is it?
Does the Supreme Court’s ruling agree with your personal views? Why
or why not? Is there anything in any of the decisions that made a particularly
strong impression on you, either favorably or unfavorably? Did the
decisions themselves or anything you read about them cause you to change
or refine your views about this particular church/state issue?
PAPER GRADING
The paper will be graded according to the following criteria:
1. The paper must address one of the decisions listed
on the Paper Assignment sheet unless
you had advance approval to use a different decision.
2. The paper must include all of the sections listed on
the Paper Assignment sheet and all of the required attachments.
3. All factual statements must be accurate.
4. The paper must address all the questions that make
up the assignment. As an example, a paper would lose points if it did
not explain why a court ruled in a particular way or whether the decision
changed your views on a church/state issue.
5. All assertions, arguments, and interpretations must
be clearly based on the court decisions and news stories you read for this
paper. Be sure to include examples, quotations, and other references
to the source material. Do not use the overall topic of the decision
as a springboard for a lengthy statement of personal views that are only tangentially
or generically related to the material you are supposed to be analyzing.
6. It does not matter whether your viewpoints coincide
with mine. I have given As to papers with which I disagreed and Ds to
papers with which I agreed; the relevant question is how well the paper meets
the standards listed here.
7. The paper should be written in correct English – spelling,
punctuation, subject/verb agreement, etc. If this has been a problem
for you in the past, I strongly recommend setting up an appointment to have
someone in the Writing Center review your final draft.