Start Date: January 10, 2002 Finish Date: January 28, 2002

Independence

     If there is one sole purpose of education, it is independence: equipping individuals with the proper tools that they need so that they may flourish and prosper in the world, and that their creative, emotional, and productive outlets may blossom. An educational environment should be open, warm, and welcoming. None should be shunned from being who they are. Freedom of expression in symbols, clothing, and speech should go unrestrained. If, however, you enter the school system provided to students today, you would find oppressive and malicious teachers, accompanied by an administration who hold no value at all to rights. By destroying the right to Free Speech, formal education serves the purpose of independence. When a student, especially an aspiring, young child, wishes to express themselves and who they are, and when the school administration steps in and says that is unacceptable, it is the destruction of the very principles that education is based on. Schools should come with freedom of speech, expression, and conscience. Schools in the United States have been the slavery of thought, destroying any effort of students to be themselves. The hand that reached for something more, the right to govern their own soul, was struck, beaten, and abused by the school leaders. It took place in American schools, which suppressed education rather than promoted it. Education is a supremely important to a free society. To quote Robert Green Ingersoll...

I BELIEVE that education is the only lever capable of raising mankind. If we wish to make the future of the Republic glorious we must educate the children of the present. The greatest blessing conferred by our Government is the free school. In importance it rises above everything else that the Government does. In its influence it is far greater.

[...]

We need far more schoolhouses than we have, and while money is being wasted in a thousand directions, thousands of children are left to be educated in the gutter. It is far cheaper to build schoolhouses than prisons, and it is much better to have scholars than convicts.

The Kindergarten system should be adopted, especially for the young; attending school is then a pleasure -- the children do not run away from school, but to school. We should educate the children not simply in mind, but educate their eyes and hands, and they should be taught something that will be of use, that will help them to make a living, that will give them independence, confidence -- that is to say, character.

The cost of the schools is very little, and the cost of land -- giving the children, as I said before, air and light -- would amount to nothing. [*1]

     The schools of the United States serve as centers for the desensitization of the population. It relinquishes any natural love of education and destroys any feelings that citizens can make a difference. Rights have been deprived from students and conscience of students have been trampled. This is the trend in dictatorial governments: a failure to understand or recognize the value of a conscious being. Some students have even been given detention, a form of punishment, for failing grades. [*2] In 1943, the West Virginia State Board of Education made it mandatory that students salute the flag during the Pledge of Allegiance in school. Justice Jackson explained the situation...

The Board of Education on January 9, 1942, adopted a resolution containing recitals taken largely from the Court's Gobitis opinion and ordering that the salute to the flag become 'a regular part of the program of activities in the public schools,' that all teachers and pupils 'shall be required to participate in the salute honoring the Nation represented by the Flag; provided, however, that refusal to salute the Flag be regarded as an Act of insubordination, and shall be dealt with accordingly.'

[...]

Failure to conform is 'insubordination' dealt with by expulsion. Readmission is denied by statute until compliance. Meanwhile the expelled child is 'unlawfully absent' and may be proceeded against as a delinquent. His parents or guardians are liable to prosecution, and if convicted are subject to fine not exceeding $50 and jail term not exceeding thirty days.

Appellees, citizens of the United States and of West Virginia, brought suit in the United States District Court for themselves and others similarly situated asking its injunction to restrain enforcement of these laws and regulations against Jehovah's Witnesses. The Witnesses are an unincorporated body teaching that the obligation imposed by law of God is superior to that of laws enacted by temporal government. Their religious beliefs include a literal version of Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 4 and 5, which says: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.' They consider that the flag is an 'image' within this command. For this reason they refuse to salute it. [319 U.S. 624, 630] Children of this faith have been expelled from school and are threatened with exclusion for no other cause. Officials threaten to send them to reformatories maintained for criminally inclined juveniles. Parents of such children have been prosecuted and are threatened with prosecutions for causing delinquency. [*3]

     Thousands of Jehovah Witnesses were dismissed from school because they refused to salute the flag. The actual law of the state read...

'WHEREAS, The West Virginia State Board of Education holds that national unity is the basis of national security; that the flag of our Nation is the symbol of our National Unity transcending all internal differences, however large within the framework of the Constitution; that the Flag is the symbol of the Nation's power; that emblem of freedom in its truest, best sense; that it signifies government resting on the consent of the governed, liberty regulated by law, protection of the weak against the strong, security against the exercise of arbitrary power, and absolute safety for free institutions against foreign aggression, and

'WHEREAS, The West Virginia State Board of Education maintains that the public schools, established by the legislature of the State of West Virginia under the authority of the Constitution of the State of West Virginia and supported by taxes imposed by legally constituted measures, are dealing with the formative period in the development in citizenship that the Flag is an allowable portion of the program of schools thus publicly supported.

'Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That the West Virginia Board of Education does hereby recognize and order that the commonly accepted salute to the Flag of the United States-the right hand is placed upon the breast and the following pledge repeated in unison: 'I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all'-now becomes a regular part of the program of activities in the public schools, supported in whole or in part by public funds, and that all teachers as defined by law in West Virginia and pupils in such schools shall be required to participate in the salute honoring the Nation represented by the Flag; provided, however, that refusal to salute the Flag be regarded as an act of insubordination, and shall be dealt with accordingly.' [*4]

     The disgustingly cruel and vindictive law, which so openly says of the United States flag, "that emblem of freedom in its truest" and then proceeds to state that students HAVE NO FREEDOM in their decision to salute it or not! To those students who were heroes, brave and true to the last for what they believed, the state spared them no sympathy, no respect, and no rights. The policy that dealt with students who disagreed with school regulations was as follows...

If a child be dismissed, suspended, or expelled from school because of refusal of such child to meet the legal and lawful requirements of the school and the established regulations of the county and/or state board of education, further admission of the child to school shall be refused until such requirements and regulations be complied with. Any such child shall be treated as being unlawfully absent from the school during the time he refuses to comply with such requirements and regulations, and any person having legal or actual control of such child shall be liable to prosecution under the provisions of this article for the absence of such child from school. [*5]

     If the mind of man is free, then man will be inclined to search for himself the truthful and the reasonable. If the mind of man is held in chains, forced into one direction, and given no choice, then man will not become free at all. He will become a slave of the state, with no real liberties and no real education. The only thing that can be rest assured in the life of this civil slave is that anything he says or believes that is not conforming will be suppressed by the state. In 1954, the case of Brown v. Board of Education finally reached the Supreme Court. It was the case which settled the dispute concerning racial segregation. Until this point, schools were made just for whites or just for blacks. Segregation and Jim Crow Laws governed the educational system. It made for an unfree society. Francisco Ferrer, executed for his Atheism and his belief that school systems should be free, wrote the following...

CO-EDUCATION OF THE SEXES

THE most important point in our programme of rational education, in view of the intellectual condition of the country, and the feature which was most likely to shock current prejudices and habits, was the co-education of boys and girls.

[...]

In my own mind, co-education was of vital importance. It was not merely an indispensable condition of realising what I regard as the ideal result of rational education; it was the ideal itself, initiating its life in the Modern School, developing progressively without any form of exclusion, inspiring a confidence of attaining our end. Natural science, philosophy, and history unite in teaching, in face of all prejudice to the contrary, that man and woman are two complementary aspects of human nature, and the failure to recognise this essential and important truth has had the most disastrous consequences.

[...]

Woman must not be restricted to the home. The sphere of her activity must go out far beyond her home; it must extend to the very confines of society. But in order to ensure a helpful result from her activity we must not restrict the amount of knowledge we communicate to her; she must learn, both in regard to quantity and quality, the same things as man. When science enters the mind of woman it will direct her rich vein of emotion, the characteristic element of her nature, the glad harbinger of peace and happiness among men.

[...]

CO-EDUCATION OF THE CLASSES

THERE must be a co-education of the different social classes as well as of the two sexes. I might have founded a school giving lessons gratuitously; but a school for poor children only would not be a rational school, since, if they were not taught submission and credulity as in the old type of school, they would have been strongly disposed to rebel, and would instinctively cherish sentiments of hatred.

There is no escape from the dilemma. There is no middle term in the school for the disinherited class alone; you have either a systematic insistence, by means of false teaching, on error and ignorance, or hatred of those who domineer and exploit. It is a delicate point, and needs stating clearly. Rebellion against oppression is merely a question of statics, of equilibrium. Between one man and another who are perfectly equal, as is said in the immortal first clause of the famous Declaration of the French Revolution (" Men are born and remain free and equal in rights"), there can be no social inequality. If there is such inequality, some will tyrannise, the others protest and hate. Rebellion is a levelling tendency, and to that extent natural and rational, however much it may be discredited by justice and its evil companions, law and religion.

I venture to say quite plainly: the oppressed and the exploited have a right to rebel, because they have to reclaim their rights until they enjoy their full share in the common patrimony. The Modern School, however, has to deal with children, whom it prepares by instruction for the state of manhood, and it must not anticipate the cravings and hatreds, the adhesions and rebellions, which may be fitting sentiments in the adult. In other words, it must not seek to gather fruit until it has been produced by cultivation, nor must it attempt to implant a sense of responsibility until it has equipped the conscience with the fundamental conditions of such responsibility. Let it teach the children to be men; when they are men, they may declare themselves rebels against injustice. [*6]

     Francisco Ferrer was far beyond his time. In the Nineteenth Century, public schooling was little more than experimentation or controlling of the masses by the ruling. It was not at all about Education. Yet, amidst the barbaric, brute, and superstitious swarming, he arose with revolutionary ideas. Education for all, that they may be free. His schools have been called "Free Schools," and it cannot be hard to see why. He utilized the principles of equality and freedom, whereas other schools were cruel and vicious. To quote Epictetus, "We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free." [*7]

     Middle schools and high schools are not the only places which are inadequate in delivering a proper education to the population. Colleges also suffer from inadequate teaching methods, and many fail to give rights to their faculty or students, despite the fact that it is often stipulated that the college is much more free than any other learning institution. The reason why the college is oppressive cannot be hard to see: colleges get their teaching methods from the traditional, orthodox institutions. Colleges are just a heightened form of learning from the high school. It can obviously be seen why they would resemble their counterparts. In the 1950's and the 1960's, freedom of conscience and expression, freedom to be who you are without being thrown in jail and kicked out of your job, was denied. In 1964, Washington State passed the following statute concerning those who wish to attend college...

'Subversive person' means any person who commits, attempts to commit, or aids in the commission, or advocates, abets, advises or teaches by any means any person to commit, attempt to commit, or aid in the commission of any act intended to overthrow, destroy or alter, or to assist in the overthrow, destruction or alteration of, the constitutional form of the government of the United States, or of the state of Washington, or any political subdivision of either of them by revolution, force, or violence; or who with knowledge that the organization is an organization as described in subsections (2) and (3) hereof, becomes or remains a member of a subversive organization or a foreign subversive organization. [*8]

     In such clear and extensive terms defined, anybody who disagrees with the government, is punished. The Communist Control Act of 1954 made the Communist Party an illegal party. The Supreme Court clarifies the issue...

This class action was brought by members of the faculty, staff, and students of the University of Washington for a judgment declaring unconstitutional 1931 and 1955 state statutes requiring the taking of oaths, one for teachers and the other for all state employees, including teachers, as a condition of employment. The 1931 oath requires teachers to swear, by precept and example, to promote respect for the flag and the institutions of the United States and the State of Washington, reverence for law and order and undivided allegiance to the Government of the United States. The 1955 oath for state employees, which incorporates provisions of the state Subversive Activities Act, requires the affiant to swear that he is not a "subversive person": that he does not commit, or advise, teach, abet or advocate another to commit or aid in the commission of any act intended to overthrow or alter, or assist in the overthrow or alteration, of the constitutional form of government by revolution, force or violence. "Subversive organization" and "foreign subversive organization" are defined in similar terms and the Communist Party is declared a subversive organization. [*9]

     Teachers from all over the state of Washington were disallowed from freedom of conscience and expression. The form for the college read as follows...

"STATE OF WASHINGTON

"Statement and Oath for Teaching Faculty of the University of Washington

"I, the undersigned, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the constitution and laws of the United States of America and of the state of Washington, and will by precept and example promote respect for the flag and the institutions of the United States of America and the state of Washington, reverence for law and order, and undivided allegiance to the government of the United States;

"I further certify that I have read the provisions of RCW 9.81.010 (2), (3), and (5); RCW 9.81.060; RCW 9.81.070; and RCW 9.81.083, which are printed on the reverse hereof; that I understand and am familiar with the contents thereof; that I am not a subversive person as therein defined; and

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I am not a member of the Communist party or knowingly of any other subversive organization.

"I understand that this statement and oath are made subject to the penalties of perjury.

................................................

(SIGNATURE) [*10]

     The state of Washington was not a free state. The government disallowed the existence or the progression of those who were Communists. It is rather an affirmation of ignorance than it is of any ideology when the government disallows foreign political parties. In 1968, the Supreme Court argued again on whether or not schools can be segregated into different races. Even though the Supreme Court had already ruled that schools should not segregate individuals because of their race, the school districts continued such a plan. To quote the Supreme Court document of the case...

Respondent School Board maintains two schools, one on the east side and one on the west side of New Kent County, Virginia. About one-half of the county's population are Negroes, who reside throughout the county since there is no residential segregation. Although this Court held in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483(Brown I), that Virginia's constitutional and statutory provisions requiring racial segregation in schools were unconstitutional, the Board continued segregated operation of the schools, presumably pursuant to Virginia statutes enacted to resist that decision. In 1965, after this suit for injunctive relief against maintenance of allegedly segregated schools was filed, the Board, in order to remain eligible for federal financial aid, adopted a "freedom-of-choice" plan for desegregating the schools. The plan permits students, except those entering the first and eighth grades, to choose annually between the schools; those not choosing are assigned to the school previously attended; first and eighth graders must affirmatively choose a school. The District Court approved the plan, as amended, and the Court of Appeals approved the "freedom-of-choice" provisions although it remanded for a more specific and comprehensive order concerning teachers. During the plan's three years of operation no white student has chosen to attend the all-Negro school, and although 115 Negro pupils enrolled in the formerly all-white school, 85% of the Negro students in the system still attend the all-Negro school.

[...]

...The respondent School Board continued the segregated operation of the system after the Brown [391 U.S. 430, 433] decisions, presumably on the authority of several statutes enacted by Virginia in resistance to those decisions. Some of these statutes were held to be unconstitutional on their face or as applied. 1 One statute, the Pupil Placement Act, Va. Code 22-232.1 et seq. (1964), not repealed until 1966, divested local boards of authority to assign children to particular schools and placed that authority in a State Pupil Placement Board....

[...]

The New Kent School Board's "freedom-of-choice" plan cannot be accepted as a sufficient step to "effectuate a transition" to a unitary system. In three years of operation not a single white child has chosen to attend Watkins school and although 115 Negro children enrolled in New Kent school in 1967 (up from 35 in 1965 and 111 in 1966) 85% of the Negro children in the system still attend the all-Negro Watkins school. In other words, the school system remains a dual system. Rather than further the dismantling of the dual system, the plan has operated simply to burden children and their parents [391 U.S. 430, 442] with a responsibility which Brown II placed squarely on the School Board. The Board must be required to formulate a new plan and, in light of other courses which appear open to the Board, such as zoning, 6 fashion steps which promise realistically to convert promptly to a system without a "white" school and a "Negro" school, but just schools. [*11]

     The law that allowed the segregation of races was still in effect after the first Supreme Court case argued against segregation, and it existed for more than a decade after the case! The year of 1969 was the most important year concerning the rights of students. It was the year the famous Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case took place. As explained by the Supreme Court...

Petitioner John F. Tinker, 15 years old, and petitioner Christopher Eckhardt, 16 years old, attended high schools in Des Moines, Iowa. Petitioner Mary Beth Tinker, John's sister, was a 13-year-old student in junior high school.

In December 1965, a group of adults and students in Des Moines held a meeting at the Eckhardt home. The group determined to publicize their objections to the hostilities in Vietnam and their support for a truce by wearing black armbands during the holiday season and by fasting on December 16 and New Year's Eve. Petitioners and their parents had previously engaged in similar activities, and they decided to participate in the program.

The principals of the Des Moines schools became aware of the plan to wear armbands. On December 14, 1965, they met and adopted a policy that any student wearing an armband to school would be asked to remove it, and if he refused he would be suspended until he returned without the armband. Petitioners were aware of the regulation that the school authorities adopted.

On December 16, Mary Beth and Christopher wore black armbands to their schools. John Tinker wore his armband the next day. They were all sent home and suspended from school until they would come back without their armbands. They did not return to school until after the planned period for wearing armbands had expired - that is, until after New Year's Day. [*12]

     It was, however, a success for the children who desired rights and freedom of expression. Not all of the Justices of the Supreme Court felt this way, however. Justice Black explained why he dissented from the decision reached by the court...

In my view, teachers in state-controlled public schools are hired to teach there. Although Mr. Justice McReynolds may have intimated to the contrary in Meyer v. Nebraska, supra, certainly a teacher is not paid to go into school and teach subjects the State does not hire him to teach as a part of its selected curriculum. Nor are public school students sent to the schools at public expense to broadcast political or any other views to educate and inform the public. The original idea of schools, which I do not believe is yet abandoned as worthless or out of date, was that children had not yet reached the point of experience and wisdom which enabled them to teach all of their elders. It may be that the Nation has outworn the old-fashioned slogan that "children are to be seen not heard," but one may, I hope, be permitted to harbor the thought that taxpayers send children to school on the premise that at their age they need to learn, not teach. [*13]

     The premise of developing education in the minds of students is not to turn them into useless drones, capable of reciting any string of repetitive data. Students are conscious beings. They should be taught to think, to critically examine claims, to be analytical in their procedures. The lesson of education, in the mind of Justice Black, is that it should be reduced to one message: "Exist, Consume, Obey." Such a cruel and heartless life we would lead as individuals if this was the true state of mind. However, people are not satisfied with this. They will not be told what to do and they will not conform simply because of certain fears that we will think. Just because we may be another race, social status, gender, or age, it does not mean in any way that we deserve less consideration, that we are to be victims without reprieve. If we were principally brutes and cowards, schooling would consist of just this: listening, memorization, and recitation. Students would work, not think or learn. It would be in no form a decent education, but rather a process by which individuals are stripped of their rights and unavailing are thrown into the real world, without independence or knowledge of any of their rights. To further slander the position of those who believe students deserve rights, Justice Black continued...

Here a very small number of students have crisply and summarily refused to obey a school order designed to give pupils who want to learn the opportunity to do so. One does not need to be a prophet or the son of a prophet to know that after the Court's holding today some students in Iowa schools and indeed in all schools will be ready, able, and willing to defy their teachers on practically all orders. This is the more unfortunate for the schools since groups of students all over the land are already running loose, conducting break-ins, sit-ins, lie-ins, and smash-ins. Many of these student groups, as is all too familiar to all who read the newspapers and watch the television news programs, have already engaged in rioting, property seizures, and destruction. They have picketed schools to force students not to cross their picket lines and have too often violently attacked earnest but frightened students who wanted an education that the pickets did not want them to get. Students engaged in such activities are apparently confident that they know far more about how to operate public school systems than do their parents, teachers, and elected school officials. [*14]

     Justice Black, by his own admission, is an individual who believes that there are different rights for different classes. While one class may vote or run for office, another has absolutely no means to affect the government. If a student is taught in a learning environment where they have no rights, where they are not given the right to speak their minds or educate their friends on their inner most feelings - if this is the school which we wish to educate our children in, then they will learn nothing. They will be ignorant zombies, only taught to obey and not to participate, only taught to accept and not to question. This is no real education in any sense. Teaching occurs, yes, but not of any meaningful sort. The value of vice and the embracement of cruelty are engraved onto the minds of students who unwilling must accept this abomination that some have dared to call "a free nation." Nonetheless, the students won their rights in this case, or at least some rights.

     In 1925, the famous Scopes Trial raged. A biology teacher was charged for teaching the theory of Evolution in a school. In Tennessee, it was a crime for any teacher to teach that mankind descended from lower animals. In 1928, Arkansas adopted a similar law. The text of the law was as follows...

" 80-1627. - Doctrine of ascent or descent of man from lower order of animals prohibited. - It shall be unlawful for any teacher or other instructor in any University, College, Normal, Public School, or other institution of the State, which is supported in whole or in part from public funds derived by State and local taxation to teach the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals and also it shall be unlawful for any teacher, textbook commission, or other authority exercising the power to select textbooks for above mentioned educational institutions to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that teaches the doctrine or theory that mankind descended or ascended from a lower order of animals.

" 80-1628. - Teaching doctrine or adopting textbook mentioning doctrine - Penalties - Positions to be vacated. - Any teacher or other instructor or textbook commissioner who is found guilty of violation of this act by teaching the theory or doctrine mentioned in section 1 hereof, or by using, or adopting any such textbooks in any such educational institution shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not exceeding five hundred dollars; and upon conviction shall vacate the position thus held in any educational institutions of the character above mentioned or any commission of which he may be a member." [*15]

     The question of evolution is simply of question of which thinking you favor: scientific or none. In this time, the state agreed to teach the theory of Creationism. A religion became instituted by the state. The politicians agreed with each other that every individual in their state should be taught the theory of Creationism, whether or not they were Creationists or Christians themselves. The legend that humans derived from Adam and Even, the myth that the gods made humanity in their own image was adopted. Education in these states ceased to exist. Children were indoctrinating into the massive legions of superstition and arrogance. One poster for the Anti-Evolution League read, "The Conflict - Hell and High school." These advocates of Creationism did not wish to excel science, nor did they wish to heighten mankind to understanding. Their one and only goal was to force their religion onto the impressionable minds of young children. The rose of education was plucked like a weed as this law was passed. Henry Louis Mencken remarks the following at the close of the Scopes trial...

Such obscenities as the forthcoming trial of the Tennessee evolutionist, if they serve no other purpose, at least call attention dramatically to the fact that enlightenment, among mankind, is very narrowly dispersed. It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone -- that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. The men of the educated minority, no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and of some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are more civilized -- though I should not like to be put to giving names -- but the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.

Such immortal vermin, true enough, get their share of the fruits of human progress, and so they may be said, in a way, to have their part in it. The most ignorant man, when he is ill, may enjoy whatever boons... modern medicine may offer -- that is, provided he is too poor to choose his own doctor. He is free, if he wants to, to take a bath. The literature of the world is at his disposal in public libraries. He may look at works of art. He may hear good music. He has at hand a thousand devices for making life less wearisome and more tolerable: the telephone, railroads, bichloride tablets, newspapers, sewers, correspondence schools, delicatessen. But he had no more to do with bringing these things into the world than the horned cattle in the fields, and he does no more to increase them today than the birds of the air.

On the contrary, he is generally against them, and sometimes with immense violence. Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men. Every valuable thing that has been added to the store of man's possessions has been derided by them when it was new, and destroyed by them when they had the power. They have fought every new truth ever heard of, and they have killed every truth-seeker who got into their hands.

[...]

The so-called religious organizations which now lead the war against the teaching of evolution are nothing more, at bottom, than conspiracies of the inferior man against his betters. They mirror very accurately his congenital hatred of knowledge, his bitter enmity to the man who knows more than he does, and so gets more out of life. Certainly it cannot have gone unnoticed that their membership is recruited, in the overwhelming main, from the lower orders -- that no man of any education or other human dignity belongs to them. What they propose to do, at bottom and in brief, is to make the superior man infamous -- by mere abuse if it is sufficient, and if it is not, then by law. [*16]

     The Supreme Court of Arkansas clarified the issues precisely. To quote the document of the Arkansas Supreme Court...

This appeal challenges the constitutionality of the "anti-evolution" statute which the State of Arkansas adopted in 1928 to prohibit the teaching in its public schools and universities of the theory that man evolved from other species of life. The statute was a product of the upsurge of "fundamentalist" religious fervor of the twenties. The Arkansas statute was an adaptation of the famous Tennessee "monkey law" which that State adopted in 1925. The constitutionality of the Tennessee law was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court in the celebrated Scopes case in 1927.

The Arkansas law makes it unlawful for a teacher in any state-supported school or university "to teach the [393 U.S. 97, 99] theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals," or "to adopt or use in any such institution a textbook that teaches" this theory. Violation is a misdemeanor and subjects the violator to dismissal from his position.

[...]

Appeal was duly prosecuted to this Court under 28 U.S.C. 1257 (2). Only Arkansas and Mississippi have such "anti-evolution" or "monkey" laws on their books. [*17]

     It was not until 1968 that this insane ideology was removed from the schools. If an individual wishes to pursue a scientific career, they will inevitably run to many conclusions. In particular, they will find that the Universe is billions of years old. Even astronomers who are studying the skies will realize that the light from many of the stars far away is already billions of years old and the stars that gave off that light are already destroyed. With regard to Evolution, Ernst Mayr has said the following...

No educated person any longer questions the validity of the so-called theory of evolution, which we now know to be a simple fact. Likewise, most of Darwin's particular theses have been fully confirmed, such as that of common descent, the gradualism of evolution, and his explanatory theory of natural selection. [*18]

     All up to this point in time, teachers, principals, and other school administration had complete control of their school. If an individual behaved improperly - "improperly" defined as the leaders of the school deemed fit - then the teachers could suspend that individual for any amount of time, without cause or reason. They were tyrants of schools, enforcing a cruel dictatorship. Schools were not about freedom and education - they were about cruelty, abuse, and suppression. The power to make the life of any student hell was held reservedly by the administration, and it went unquestioned. If dropping your pencil on the floor warrants a suspension, you will be suspended. These were not schools of the free and they were not schools for education. They were schools that taught students to respect and obey an authority, no matter how cruel and vindictive that authority was. By striking fear into the hearts and corruption into the minds of students, the schools of this time accomplished much: students became disenchanted with learning and held a thick hatred for the world. In 1974, several students were suspended for school for doing nothing. Dwight Lopez and Betty Crome were suspended for ten days by school administration because they had been near public disruptions at the time of their occurrence The two students were willing to plead their innocence, and the school had no proof that the students committed any crime, but the school suspended the students without allowing them a hearing.

Appellee Ohio public high school students, who had been suspended from school for misconduct for up to 10 days without a hearing, brought a class action against appellant school officials seeking a declaration that the Ohio statute permitting such suspensions was unconstitutional and an order enjoining the officials to remove the references to the suspensions from the students' records. A three-judge District Court declared that appellees were denied due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment because they were "suspended without hearing prior to suspension or within a reasonable time thereafter," and that the statute and implementing regulations were unconstitutional, and granted the requested injunction.

[...]

The nine named appellees, each of whom alleged that he or she had been suspended from public high school in Columbus for up to 10 days without a hearing pursuant to 3313.66, filed an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the Columbus Board of Education and various administrators of the CPSS. The complaint sought a declaration that 3313.66 was unconstitutional in that it permitted public school administrators to deprive plaintiffs of their rights to an education without a hearing of any kind, in violation of the procedural due process component of the Fourteenth Amendment. It also sought to enjoin the public school officials from issuing future suspensions pursuant to 3313.66 and to require them to remove references to the past suspensions from the records of the students in question.

The proof below established that the suspensions arose out of a period of widespread student unrest in the CPSS during February and March 1971. Six of the named plaintiffs, Rudolph Sutton, Tyrone Washington, Susan Cooper, Deborah Fox, Clarence Byars, and Bruce Harris, were students at the Marion-Franklin High School and were each suspended for 10 days on account of disruptive or disobedient conduct committed in the presence of the school administrator who ordered the suspension. One of these, Tyrone Washington, was among a group of students demonstrating in the school auditorium while a class was being conducted there. He was ordered by the school principal to leave, refused to do so, and was suspended. Rudolph Sutton, in the presence of the principal, physically attacked a police officer who was attempting to remove Tyrone Washington from the auditorium. He was immediately suspended. The other four Marion-Franklin students were suspended for similar conduct. None was given a hearing to determine the operative facts underlying the suspension, but each, together with his or her parents, was offered the opportunity to attend a conference, subsequent to the effective date of the suspension, to discuss the student's future.

Two named plaintiffs, Dwight Lopez and Betty Crome, were students at the Central High School and McGuffey Junior High School, respectively. The former was suspended in connection with a disturbance in the lunchroom which involved some physical damage to school property. Lopez testified that at least 75 other students were suspended from his school on the same day. He also testified below that he was not a party to the destructive conduct but was instead an innocent bystander. Because no one from the school testified with regard to this incident, there is no evidence in the record indicating the official basis for concluding otherwise. Lopez never had a hearing.

Betty Crome was present at a demonstration at a high school other than the one she was attending. There she was arrested together with others, taken to the police station, and released without being formally charged. Before she went to school on the following day, she was notified that she had been suspended for a 10-day period. Because no one from the school testified with respect to this incident, the record does not disclose how the McGuffey Junior High School principal went about making the decision to suspend Crome, nor does it disclose on what information the decision was based. It is clear from the record that no hearing was ever held.

There was no testimony with respect to the suspension of the ninth named plaintiff, Carl Smith. The school files were also silent as to his suspension, although as to some, but not all, of the other named plaintiffs the files contained either direct references to their suspensions or copies of letters sent to their parents advising them of the suspension. [*19]

     It would not be acceptable for any institution, be it of learning, recreation, or work, to suspend or punish anyone when there is no evidence or reason behind it. The educators in our learning institutions felt that they had the right to persecute without the burden of proof. They felt that they could suspend or punish, without a care or thought as to whether or not it was justly done. Justice Powell stated the following at this court decision...

In assessing in constitutional terms the need to protect pupils from unfair minor discipline by school authorities, the Court ignores the commonality of interest of the State and pupils in the public school system. Rather, it thinks in traditional judicial terms of an adversary situation. To be sure, there will be the occasional pupil innocent of any rule infringement who is mistakenly suspended or whose infraction is too minor to justify suspension. But, while there is no evidence indicating the frequency of unjust suspensions, common sense suggests that they will not be numerous in relation to the total number, and that mistakes or injustices will usually be righted by informal means. [*20]

     What Powell fails to recognize is that by giving teachers the ability to suspend a student up to ten days, without any reasons what so ever, a system of inhumanity rather than education will evolve into the schooling. It has been said by many ethical and social reformers that to give limitless powers to anybody will only lead to greed and corruption. To quote Albert Leffingwell, a physician who worked with the American Humanitarian League when arguing against Vivisection and animal testing...

Doubtless the Czar of Russia prefers unlimited power to the restrictions of a written constitution; but absolutism, whether on the imperial throne or in the physiological laboratory, has not offered to the world the highest type of conduct. What, for instance, would be thought of the president of a great and wealthy university who should proclaim that, as regards the expenditure of the treasurer, no restraints or restrictions were ever imposed; that complete confidence in personal character took the place of all vouchers and receipts? [*21]

     The point made by Albert Leffingwell is unmistaken: if we give unlimited power to individuals, they will inevitably abuse their position. In free governments where the citizens are given the right to choose the destiny and fate of laws, there is often a system of checks and balances The president does not have unlimited power; nor does Congress, the House of Representatives, or judges. All individuals in the government have a means to check and balance each other. However, this system which has been used by thousands of governments to prevent corruption and abuse of power tumbles to dust when implemented in the school system. Corrupt and brutalizing governments which wish to have nobody check or control their power will eliminate this system of checks and balances It is the product of a power-hungry dictator who wishes to rule without caprice. And it is this very system - born of abuse, greed, and corruption - that Justice Powell would want our education to be based on! If the citizens of a cruel government learn nothing but cruelty, how can the students of a cruel administration learn anything but just that: cruelty? The concept itself is ridiculous. The principle of a free education is based on making the students independent, so that they may excel and succeed in the real world. To place students in a hostile environment where they are afforded no rights is not at all a form of education; it is a form of state-instituted abuse.

     If there is one thing which has been evident in process of education, it is that the rulers of these so-called "places of learning" have always been quick to guide education their own way. When education is guided by a biased source or forced, it is no longer education. It may be called brainwashing or indoctrination, but it is far from an education. In many ways, the teachers, principals, and superintendents have all been quick to destroy the principle of education by replacing it with forced thinking, which is no kind of thinking at all. One particular way that schools have done this is by refusing the existence of another point of view. The text books do not speak of this view - and if they do, it is negatively, the teachers do not discuss it, and the librarians refuse to house such books. Banning books has always been a way that the masses have been controlled. When Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published, revealing many of the harsh realities of slavery, there were many book burnings of it in the south. The Catholic Church compiled a list of thousands of banned books in 1948. Today, many churches are burning Harry Potter books, as well as other sorts of media, including Pokemon cards. Here are some of the most challenged books in school libraries...

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling

8. Forever by Judy Blume

13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine

17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras

41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

44. The Pigman by Paul Zinden

47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)

54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole

55. Cujo by Stephen King

56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy

61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras

70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

77. Carrie by Stephen King

83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King

84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford

93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis

95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy [*22]

     There are some who would say that it might be acceptable if this list consisted of books that were purely racist or dangerous. That is to say, they would at least find that acceptable, but to ban - or try to ban - this list of books is appalling. There are those who say banning books about murder is acceptable, but I do not find the banning of any knowledge acceptable at all! If you set a student in one direction of learning, without allowing them to turn and the check the other directions, the student will become narrow-minded. To quote Carl Sagan, "...censoring knowledge, telling people what they must think, is the aperture to thought police, foolish and incompetent decision-making, and long-term decline." [*23] Books by Mark Twain and John Steinbeck were challenged more often than The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell. [*24] Powell's publication contains methods for creating bombs and explosives yet the stories of Huckleberry Finn have been deemed less appropriate. In no way do I think that any book should be banned. To hold a monopoly on thought is tyrannical, and certainly not a principle of education. Education means freedom - both of expression and conscience - yet we so often meet school boards who are desiring to ban books. Two of Mark Twain's books make the top 100 most challenged books. Of school boards, Mark Twain himself has said, "In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards." [*25] These books that are banned are excellent books. They ignite the imagination and stimulate the mind. Mark Twain's novels of childhood to scientific books by Huxley to Maya Angelou's books of freedom - to ban such books would be a crime. Some of these books are about sexuality. Now the knowledge of one's own body is illegal, forbidden knowledge? To the educator's of today, it would appear that way. The most challenged authors of the year 2000 were: J.K. Rowling, Robert Cormier, Lois Duncan, Piers Anthony, Walter Dean Myers, Phylis Reynolds Naylor, John Steinbeck, Maya Angelou, Christopher Pike, Caroline Cooney, Alvin Schwartz, Lois Lowry, Harry Allard, Paul Zindel, and Judy Blume. [*26] There are certain schools which punish children for carrying such banned books on school property! And so children are not given the right to expression or freedom of conscience. Now, being placed in the hostile school environment, under the rule of an administrator who believes they have full and total control, they are not given the right to read the books that they desire. If so much as one book is banned, it is not education. It is control of thought - a principle which is conflicted with a real education.

     In 1975, a committee of parents and students of the Island Trees Union Free School District of New York banned several books from its high school and junior high school libraries that they deemed to be unacceptable. To quote the Supreme Court document relating to this incident...

Petitioners are the Board of Education of the Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, in New York, and Richard Ahrens, Frank Martin, Christina Fasulo, Patrick Hughes, Richard Melchers, Richard Michaels, and Louis Nessim. When this suit was brought, Ahrens was the President of the Board, Martin was the Vice President, and the remaining petitioners were Board members. The Board is a state agency charged with responsibility for the operation and administration of the public schools within the Island Trees School District, including the Island Trees High School and Island Trees Memorial Junior High School. Respondents are Steven Pico, Jacqueline Gold, Glenn Yarris, Russell Rieger, and Paul Sochinski. When this suit was brought, Pico, Gold, Yarris, and Rieger were students at the High School, and Sochinski was a student at the Junior High School.

In September 1975, petitioners Ahrens, Martin, and Hughes attended a conference sponsored by Parents of New York United (PONYU), a politically conservative organization of parents concerned about education legislation in the State of New York. At the conference these petitioners obtained lists of books described by Ahrens as "objectionable," App. 22, and by Martin as "improper fare for school students," id., at 101. It was later determined that the High School library contained nine of the listed books, and that another listed book was in the Junior High School library. In [457 U.S. 853, 857] February 1976, at a meeting with the Superintendent of Schools and the Principals of the High School and Junior High School, the Board gave an "unofficial direction" that the listed books be removed from the library shelves and delivered to the Board's offices, so that Board members could read them. When this directive was carried out, it became publicized, and the Board issued a press release justifying its action. It characterized the removed books as "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy," and concluded that "[i]t is our duty, our moral obligation, to protect the children in our schools from this moral danger as surely as from physical and medical dangers." 474 F. Supp. 387, 390 (EDNY 1979).

A short time later, the Board appointed a "Book Review Committee," consisting of four Island Trees parents and four members of the Island Trees schools staff, to read the listed books and to recommend to the Board whether the books should be retained, taking into account the books' "educational suitability," "good taste," "relevance," and "appropriateness to age and grade level." In July, the Committee made its final report to the Board, recommending that five of the listed books be retained and that two others be removed from the school libraries. As for the remaining four books, the Committee could not agree on two, took no position on one, and recommended that the last book be made available to students only with parental approval. The Board substantially rejected the Committee's report later that month, deciding that only one book should be returned to the High School library without restriction, that another should be made available subject to parental approval, but that the remaining nine books should "be removed from elementary and secondary libraries and [from] use in the curriculum." Id., at 391. The Board gave no reasons for rejecting the recommendations of the Committee that it had appointed. [*27]

     The rulers of a school have not held justice close to heart. They are not friends of fairness and they are not allies of love. They can be characterized as heartless beings, with no desire to promote education. This is not entirely their fault however. The school boards, the legislative branches, the conservative groups, and all the others involved have given discretion of everything to school administration. To suspend someone, force them to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, disallow them the right to expression, disallow them the right to freedom of conscience, to disallow them from reading books, among other things, have all been choices of the teachers. The concept of fairness, when dealing in these situations, is an obscure concept, unworthy of consideration. When the leaders of our country give absolute rights to the teachers of our schools, it should be obvious that there will be many unjust conflicts caused by these teachers. When they may do as they wish, who is to say that they should not do wrongly? There is no one. The principles which govern an enslaved country to the wills of a Fascist dictatorship are the same same principles which govern a school to the wills of a Fascist administration. This fact should be appalling, but by many people it is promoted. And yet, under this infamous and cruel regime, it is expected that the flower of intelligence and creativity should blossom. In 1980, the administration at the Piscataway High School in Middlesex County, New Jersey, illegally searched the contents of a students purse. The Supreme Court document explains...

On March 7, 1980, a teacher at Piscataway High School in Middlesex County, N. J., discovered two girls smoking in a lavatory. One of the two girls was the respondent T. L. O., who at that time was a 14-year-old high school freshman. Because smoking in the lavatory was a violation of a school rule, the teacher took the two girls to the principal's office, where they met with Assistant Vice Principal Theodore Choplick. In response to questioning by Mr. Choplick, T. L. O.'s companion admitted that she had violated the rule. T. L. O., however, denied that she had been smoking in the lavatory and claimed that she did not smoke at all.

Mr. Choplick asked T. L. O. to come into his private office and demanded to see her purse. Opening the purse, he found a pack of cigarettes, which he removed from the purse and held before T. L. O. as he accused her of having lied to him. As he reached into the purse for the cigarettes, Mr. Choplick also noticed a package of cigarette rolling papers. In his experience, possession of rolling papers by high school students was closely associated with the use of marihuana. Suspecting that a closer examination of the purse might yield further evidence of drug use, Mr. Choplick proceeded to search the purse thoroughly. The search revealed a small amount of marihuana, a pipe, a number of empty plastic bags, a substantial quantity of money in one-dollar bills, an index card that appeared to be a list of students who owed T. L. O. money, and two letters that implicated T. L. O. in marihuana dealing.

Mr. Choplick notified T. L. O.'s mother and the police, and turned the evidence of drug dealing over to the police. At [469 U.S. 325, 329] the request of the police, T. L. O.'s mother took her daughter to police headquarters, where T. L. O. confessed that she had been selling marihuana at the high school. On the basis of the confession and the evidence seized by Mr. Choplick, the State brought delinquency charges against T. L. O. in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Middlesex County. 1 Contending that Mr. Choplick's search of her purse violated the Fourth Amendment, T. L. O. moved to suppress the evidence found in her purse as well as her confession, which, she argued, was tainted by the allegedly unlawful search. The Juvenile Court denied the motion to suppress. [*28]

     Of what rationality can be contained in the mind of Mr. Choplick? The same may be asked of a rock with a similar answer. Perhaps a search would seem reasonable if there was sufficient cause for it. However, there was not significant enough reason at all to search the belongings of this student. A student may break a single rule of a school without being stripped of all their rights. If a student curses, for example - which in itself is nothing but a crime against a pathetic culture - upon cursing, does this student no longer possess any rights? May the administration search their belongings? The student in this case had not broken any laws and she did not put the school at danger. The only thing that she did was the breaking of a school regulation. This does not mean that the student has no rights at all. Perhaps a punishment could be merited, but not an unconstitutional search and seizure. The Supreme Court clarified the issue...

In determining whether the search at issue in this case violated the Fourth Amendment, we are faced initially with the question whether that Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials. We hold that it does. [469 U.S. 325, 334]

It is now beyond dispute that "the Federal Constitution, by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers." Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 213 (1960); accord, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949). Equally indisputable is the proposition that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the rights of students against encroachment by public school officials:

"The Fourteenth Amendment, as now applied to the States, protects the citizen against the State itself and all of its creatures - Boards of Education not excepted. These have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights. That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes." West Virginia State Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 637 (1943).

These two propositions - that the Fourth Amendment applies to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, and that the actions of public school officials are subject to the limits placed on state action by the Fourteenth Amendment - might appear sufficient to answer the suggestion that the Fourth Amendment does not proscribe unreasonable searches by school officials. On reargument, however, the State of New Jersey has argued that the history of the Fourth Amendment indicates that the Amendment was intended to regulate only searches and seizures carried out by law enforcement officers; accordingly, although public school officials are concededly state agents for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fourth Amendment creates no rights enforceable against them. [469 U.S. 325, 335]

It may well be true that the evil toward which the Fourth Amendment was primarily directed was the resurrection of the pre-Revolutionary practice of using general warrants or "writs of assistance" to authorize searches for contraband by officers of the Crown. See United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 7-8 (1977); Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 624-629 (1886). But this Court has never limited the Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures to operations conducted by the police. Rather, the Court has long spoken of the Fourth Amendment's strictures as restraints imposed upon "governmental action" - that is, "upon the activities of sovereign authority." Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 475 (1921). Accordingly, we have held the Fourth Amendment applicable to the activities of civil as well as criminal authorities: building inspectors, see Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967), Occupational Safety and Health Act inspectors, see Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307, 312-313 (1978), and even firemen entering privately owned premises to battle a fire, see Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 506 (1978), are all subject to the restraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment. As we observed in Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, "[t]he basic purpose of this Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of this Court, is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials." 387 U.S., at 528. Because the individual's interest in privacy and personal security "suffers whether the government's motivation is to investigate violations of criminal laws or breaches of other statutory or regulatory standards," Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., supra, at 312-313, it would be "anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior." Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, at 530. [469 U.S. 325, 336] [*29]

     The Supreme Court ruled against T. L. O.. School administration of a school may search the belongings of any individual who has broken any of the rules. If a rule requires that a student has to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and the student does not, then the administration of that school is given the right to search the belongings of that student. Not because there is a decent threat to the school and not because the security of the school is in jeopardy, but only for egotistic and unfair reasons. Even if a child is guilty of doing no wrong, think of how easily a school administrator could get a child in trouble. At one time, a teacher or principal could suspend a student without any reasonable cause, and this position was actually defended by certain individuals! With this combination, any student is susceptible to unfairness and cruelty. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution clearly explains that every citizen of this country has the right to their own property, that they should not be subjected to unjust search and seizures. This right of the people was violated when T. L. O.'s belongings were searched, and every defender of freedom should be outraged. For if one individual is suppressed, then nobody is free. Justice Stephens, along with Justice Marshall and Justice Brennan, dissented from the opinion of the court. They held that a student has rights and breaking a school rule does not strip a student of the right to fairness. Justice Stephens stated the following to the court...

Assistant Vice Principal Choplick searched T. L. O.'s purse for evidence that she was smoking in the girls' restroom. Because T. L. O.'s suspected misconduct was not illegal and did not pose a serious threat to school discipline, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that Choplick's search [469 U.S. 325, 371] of her purse was an unreasonable invasion of her privacy and that the evidence which he seized could not be used against her in criminal proceedings. The New Jersey court's holding was a careful response to the case it was required to decide.

The State of New Jersey sought review in this Court, first arguing that the exclusionary rule is wholly inapplicable to searches conducted by school officials, and then contending that the Fourth Amendment itself provides no protection at all to the student's privacy. The Court has accepted neither of these frontal assaults on the Fourth Amendment. It has, however, seized upon this "no smoking" case to announce "the proper standard" that should govern searches by school officials who are confronted with disciplinary problems far more severe than smoking in the restroom. Although I join Part II of the Court's opinion, I continue to believe that the Court has unnecessarily and inappropriately reached out to decide a constitutional question. See 468 U.S. 1214 (1984) (STEVENS, J., dissenting from reargument order). More importantly, I fear that the concerns that motivated the Court's activism have produced a holding that will permit school administrators to search students suspected of violating only the most trivial school regulations and guidelines for behavior. [*30]

     Justice Stephens made an absolutely valid point: when the rulers of a school have the power to search the belongings of another individual, just for breaking the most insignificant of rules, massive amounts of students will suffer the injustice of thoughtless and careless teachers and principals. This is the current state of our "educational" system: the rights of a student are tossed aside entirely when they have broken but one rule. There is no heart in the tormentor to care, and there is no mind in legislative to improve things. The school environment is a bleak, barren place. Students learn - yes, they learn - but vice is confirmed and virtue rejected. Rights mean nothing to them, and they are desensitized by the time their formal schooling is finished, unaware of rights and unaware of compassion. In 1987, the Supreme Court argued over the right of Free Speech in schools again. This time, it considered whether school newspapers have the right to Free Speech. The incident that brought up this trial is described...

Respondents, former high school students who were staff members of the school's newspaper, filed suit in Federal District Court against petitioners, the school district and school officials, alleging that respondents' First Amendment rights were violated by the deletion from a certain issue of the paper of two pages that included an article describing school students' experiences with pregnancy and another article discussing the impact of divorce on students at the school. The newspaper was written and edited by a journalism class, as part of the school's curriculum. Pursuant to the school's practice, the teacher in charge of the paper submitted page proofs to the school's principal, who objected to the pregnancy story because the pregnant students, although not named, might be identified from the text, and because he believed that the article's references to sexual activity and birth control were inappropriate for some of the younger students. The principal objected to the divorce article because the page proofs he was furnished identified by name (deleted by the teacher from the final version) a student who complained of her father's conduct, and the principal believed that the student's parents should have been given an opportunity to respond to the remarks or to consent to their publication. Believing that there was no time to make necessary changes in the articles if the paper was to be issued before the end of the school year, the principal directed that the pages on which they appeared be withheld from publication even though other, unobjectionable articles were included on such pages. [*31]

     The rights of the students were certainly infringed. The principal, a monstrous ignoramus, believes that students shouldn't talk about what they are already doing: sex. The principal is the epitome of suppression and ignorance. No such greater contumely can be committed than this, to destroy all expression and hope of a new generation. Before reaching the real world, these students must survive in a cruel and hostile environment. They are not given the right to express. They are suppressed, held under the thumb. The cry for emancipation has come from the Abolitionists to the Suffragists, but with little reform skill, the judges and leaders fail to see that what they put the students through in schools destroys them. If you ask someone today who graduated from such a school, they would be able to tell you the date that Napoleon took over France and how few rights they were granted by the Constitution. They will be able to tell you how every time they sought something more, freedom of conscience, freedom of choice, freedom of expression, they were pushed back, knocked down, and humiliated. Every time the inexperienced hand of reason tried to make an attempt to understand the real world, to show the real world itself, it was cut off, dismantled. There are no rights in schools. Those students who believe they deserve them with find themselves with bitter opposition. In this case of Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, students lost the right to publish their own thoughts in the school newspaper. They are now subject to criticism from a man unbeknownst to the very subject of justice: the principal. Ignorance in hand, unavailing suppression a goal; our education systems are inadequate to say the least. Justice Brennan, as well as Justice Marshall and Justice Blackmun, dissented from the Supreme Court in its decision. These men believed that to censor a student newspaper would be to break the First Amendment's promise of Free Speech. Brennan dissented, stating...

When the young men and women of Hazelwood East High School registered for Journalism II, they expected a civics lesson. Spectrum, the newspaper they were to publish, "was not just a class exercise in which students learned to prepare papers and hone writing skills, it was a . . . forum established to give students an opportunity to express their views while gaining an appreciation of their rights and responsibilities under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution . . . ." 795 F.2d 1368, 1373 (CA8 1986). "[A]t the beginning of each school year," id., at 1372, the student journalists published a Statement of Policy - tacitly approved each year by school authorities - announcing their expectation that "Spectrum, as a student-press publication, accepts all rights implied by the First Amendment . . . . Only speech that `materially and substantially interferes with the requirements of appropriate discipline' can be found unacceptable and therefore prohibited." App. 26 (quoting Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969)). The school board itself affirmatively guaranteed the students of Journalism II an atmosphere conducive to fostering such an appreciation and exercising the full panoply of rights associated with a free student press. "School sponsored student publications," it vowed, "will not restrict free expression or diverse viewpoints within the rules of responsible journalism." App. 22 (Board Policy 348.51). [484 U.S. 260, 278]

This case arose when the Hazelwood East administration breached its own promise, dashing its students' expectations. The school principal, without prior consultation or explanation, excised six articles - comprising two full pages - of the May 13, 1983, issue of Spectrum. He did so not because any of the articles would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline," but simply because he considered two of the six "inappropriate, personal, sensitive, and unsuitable" for student consumption. 795 F.2d, at 1371.

In my view the principal broke more than just a promise. He violated the First Amendment's prohibitions against censorship of any student expression that neither disrupts classwork nor invades the rights of others, and against any censorship that is not narrowly tailored to serve its purpose.

I

Public education serves vital national interests in preparing the Nation's youth for life in our increasingly complex society and for the duties of citizenship in our democratic Republic. See Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954). The public school conveys to our young the information and tools required not merely to survive in, but to contribute to, civilized society. It also inculcates in tomorrow's leaders the "fundamental values necessary to the maintenance of a democratic political system . . . ." Ambach v. Norwick, 441 U.S. 68, 77 (1979). All the while, the public educator nurtures students' social and moral development by transmitting to them an official dogma of "`community values.'" Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 864 (1982) (plurality opinion) (citation omitted). [*32]

     Justice Brennan, as well as the other Justices who dissented with him, is a man beyond his time. Today the legislatures, politicians, and so-called educators believe that education is a thing about control, making students intelligent and smart. Perhaps in an age when civilization has recognized that education is more than just rote memorization of sterile facts, that education is more than teaching obedience, that education is not cruelty -- perhaps in this age of civilization when we as a whole realize that education is about encouraging creativity, honing reverence, and developing values. When the schools supported with our tax money realize that education is not about forcing things onto students, but letting the students explore things, then we will have what is called a real education. Until that date, until that epiphany of education, our schools will serve the purpose of suppression and desensitization.

     The relationship of the church to the school has already been stated previously: they should not intertwine at all. School is about the education of the heart and the mind, preparing individuals so that they can properly make the choices that govern their life as they become productive, happy, and secure in themselves. When we invoke dogmatic principles along a sound education, they will inevitably corrupt each other. If we have a religion class, where it is taught that the rainbow is a sign from god and then we have a science class where the students artificially produce rainbows in class, will not the classrooms be at odds? If we have a religion class that teaches women are inferior to men and that slavery is acceptable, as the Bible suggests, and a class for philosophy that teaches that every conscious being holds value, will they not be at odds? A fitting education has no place for religion, and religion has no place for a fitting education. They are bitter opposites, enemies of each other. The church has always detested questioning and thought, making it a crime to read and investigation punishable by death. A true education fosters the very opposite: freedom in conscience and expression, encouraging investigation and examination. The school of our nation has generally sided with the church. In 1963, the Supreme Court handled the case concerning school prayer. Up to this time, school prayer was mandatory. Justice Clark explains the situation...

Once again we are called upon to consider the scope of the provision of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." These companion cases present the issues in the context of state action requiring that schools begin each day with readings from the Bible. While raising the basic questions under slightly different factual situations, the cases permit of joint treatment. In light of the history of the First Amendment and of our cases interpreting and applying its requirements, we hold that the practices at issue and the laws requiring them are unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

I.

The Facts in Each Case: No. 142. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by law, 24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928 (Supp. 1960) Dec. 17, 1959, requires that "At least ten verses from the Holy Bible shall be read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day. Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian." The Schempp family, husband and wife and two of their three children, brought suit to enjoin enforcement of the statute, contending that their rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States are, have been, and will continue to be violated unless this statute be declared unconstitutional as violative of these provisions of the First Amendment. They sought to enjoin the appellant school district, wherein the Schempp children attend school, and its officers and the [374 U.S. 203, 206] Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Commonwealth from continuing to conduct such readings and recitation of the Lord's Prayer in the public schools of the district pursuant to the statute. A three-judge statutory District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the statute is violative of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as applied to the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and directed that appropriate injunctive relief issue. 201 F. Supp. 815. 1 On appeal by the District, its officials and the Superintendent, under 28 U.S.C. 1253, we noted probable jurisdiction. 371 U.S. 807.

The appellees Edward Lewis Schempp, his wife Sidney, and their children, Roger and Donna, are of the Unitarian faith and are members of the Unitarian church in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they, as well as another son, Ellory, regularly attend religious services. The latter was originally a party but having graduated from the school system pendente lite was voluntarily dismissed from the action. The other children attend the Abington Senior High School, which is a public school operated by appellant district.

On each school day at the Abington Senior High School between 8:15 and 8:30 a. m., while the pupils are attending their home rooms or advisory sections, opening exercises [374 U.S. 203, 207] are conducted pursuant to the statute. The exercises are broadcast into each room in the school building through an intercommunications system and are conducted under the supervision of a teacher by students attending the school's radio and television workshop. Selected students from this course gather each morning in the school's workshop studio for the exercises, which include readings by one of the students of 10 verses of the Holy Bible, broadcast to each room in the building. This is followed by the recitation of the Lord's Prayer, likewise over the intercommunications system, but also by the students in the various classrooms, who are asked to stand and join in repeating the prayer in unison. The exercises are closed with the flag salute and such pertinent announcements as are of interest to the students. Participation in the opening exercises, as directed by the statute, is voluntary. The student reading the verses from the Bible may select the passages and read from any version he chooses, although the only copies furnished by the school are the King James version, copies of which were circulated to each teacher by the school district. During the period in which the exercises have been conducted the King James, the Douay and the Revised Standard versions of the Bible have been used, as well as the Jewish Holy Scriptures. There are no prefatory statements, no questions asked or solicited, no comments or explanations made and no interpretations given at or during the exercises. The students and parents are advised that the student may absent himself from the classroom or, should he elect to remain, not participate in the exercises. [*33]

     The oppression was not just in that school. There were many other schools that suppressed non-Christian thought. To quote Justice Clark again...

In 1905 the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City adopted a rule pursuant to Art. 77, 202 of the Annotated Code of Maryland. The rule provided for the holding of opening exercises in the schools of the city, consisting primarily of the "reading, without comment, of a chapter in the Holy Bible and/or the use of the Lord's Prayer." The petitioners, Mrs. Madalyn Murray and her son, William J. Murray III, are both professed atheists. Following unsuccessful attempts to have the respondent school board rescind the rule, this suit was filed for mandamus to compel its rescission and cancellation. It was alleged that William was a student in a public school of the city and Mrs. Murray, his mother, was a taxpayer therein; that it was the practice under the rule to have a reading on each school morning from the King James version of the Bible; that at petitioners' insistence the rule was amended 4 to permit children to [374 U.S. 203, 212] be excused from the exercise on request of the parent and that William had been excused pursuant thereto; that nevertheless the rule as amended was in violation of the petitioners' rights "to freedom of religion under the First and Fourteenth Amendments" and in violation of "the principle of separation between church and state, contained therein. . . ." The petition particularized the petitioners' atheistic beliefs and stated that the rule, as practiced, violated their rights

"in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority; it pronounces belief in God as the source of all moral and spiritual values, equating these values with religious values, and thereby renders sinister, alien and suspect the beliefs and ideals of your Petitioners, promoting doubt and question of their morality, good citizenship and good faith." [*34]

     This was not a system of freedom, nor was it a system of education. At best it can be considered a system of suppression and forced majority opinion. At worst, it can be called the epitome of arrogance: destruction of conscience and expression. If any person was forced to recite a prayer of another religion, it would be considered nothing short of tyranny. To viciously impose such mandatory bigotry among students in an institution of "education" is no education at all. In this kind of institution, values are destroyed or forced before they are given a chance to grow and bloom. In 1992, a similar question of the school and the church was brought into perspective. At a high school, various religious figures were brought forth to speak to the class The Supreme Court explains...

Deborah Weisman graduated from Nathan Bishop Middle School, a public school in Providence, at a formal ceremony in June, 1989. She was about 14 years old. For many years, it has been the policy of the Providence School Committee and the Superintendent of Schools to permit principals to invite members of the clergy to give invocations and benedictions at middle school and high school graduations. Many, but not all, of the principals elected to include prayers as part of the graduation ceremonies. Acting for himself and his daughter, Deborah's father, Daniel Weisman, objected to any prayers at Deborah's middle school graduation, but to no avail. The school principal, petitioner Robert E. Lee, invited a rabbi to deliver prayers at the graduation exercises for Deborah's class. Rabbi Leslie Gutterman, of the Temple Beth El in Providence, accepted.

It has been the custom of Providence school officials to provide invited clergy with a pamphlet entitled "Guidelines for Civic Occasions," prepared by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. The Guidelines recommend that public prayers at nonsectarian civic ceremonies be composed with "inclusiveness and sensitivity," though they acknowledge that "[p]rayer of any kind may be inappropriate on some civic occasions." App. 20-21. The principal gave Rabbi Gutterman the pamphlet before the graduation, and advised him the invocation and benediction should be nonsectarian. Agreed Statement of Facts 7, id., at 13. [*35]

     The school promoted public prayers, holding no rights of free expression or free conscience to students. The Rabbi Gutterman's prayers were as follows...

"INVOCATION

"God of the Free, Hope of the Brave:

"For the legacy of America where diversity is celebrated and the rights of minorities are protected, [505 U.S. 577, 582] we thank You. May these young men and women grow up to enrich it.

"For the liberty of America, we thank You. May these new graduates grow up to guard it.

"For the political process of America in which all its citizens may participate, for its court system where all may seek justice, we thank You. May those we honor this morning always turn to it in trust.

"For the destiny of America, we thank You. May the graduates of Nathan Bishop Middle School so live that they might help to share it.

"May our aspirations for our country and for these young people, who are our hope for the future, be richly fulfilled.

AMEN"

"BENEDICTION

"O God, we are grateful to You for having endowed us with the capacity for learning which we have celebrated on this joyous commencement.

"Happy families give thanks for seeing their children achieve an important milestone. Send Your blessings upon the teachers and administrators who helped prepare them.

"The graduates now need strength and guidance for the future; help them to understand that we are not complete with academic knowledge alone. We must each strive to fulfill what You require of us all: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly.

"We give thanks to You, Lord, for keeping us alive, sustaining us, and allowing us to reach this special, happy occasion.

AMEN" [*36]

     A prayer was instituted and freedom was deprioritized. Religion was more important than education. This is what constituted formal education: oppression and dogma. There can be nothing more debilitating to the mind than this one school -- a place that holds contempt for freedom of conscience and freedom of thought. Students are not made independent They do not make choices for themselves. They are forced into decisions. They learn only one thing: that others will be living their lives for them and that they have no real choice at all. The rest of their lives would be based on this foundation of what schools had taught them. They would not be active citizens. Schools had not fostered a sense of independence in them. It did not turn them into creative and intelligent individuals. It destroyed any sense of wonder they already had. There is nothing so destructive of a real education as forced dogma in the curriculum. Mark Twain has said, "It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." Of education, Henry Stephens Salt has said...

Education, in the largest sense of the term, has always been, and must always remain, the antecedent and indispensable condition of humanitarian progress. Very excellent are the words of John Bright on the subject (let us forget for the once that he was an angler). "Humanity to animals is a great point. If I were a teacher in school, I would make it a very important part of my business to impress every boy and girl with the duty of his or her being kind to all animals. It is impossible to say how much suffering there is in the world from the barbarity or unkindness which people show to what we call the inferior creatures."

It may be doubted, however, whether the young will ever be specially impressed with the lesson of humanity as long as the general tone of their elders and instructors is one of cynical indifference, if not of absolute hostility, to the recognition of animals' rights. It is society as a whole, and not one class in particular, that needs enlightenment and remonstrance; in fact, the very conception and scope of what is known as a "liberal education" must be revolutionized and extended. For if we find fault with the narrow and unscientific spirit of what is known as "science," we must in fairness admit that our academic "humanities," the litera humaniores of college and schools, together with much of our modern culture and refinement, are scarcely less deficient in that quickening spirit of sympathetic brotherhood, without which all the accomplishments that the mind of man can devise are as the borrowed cloak of an imperfectly realized civilization, assumed by some barbarous tribe but half emerged from savagery. This divorce of "humanism" from humaneness is one of the subtlest dangers by which society is beset; for, if we grant that love needs to be tempered and directed by wisdom, still more needful is it that wisdom should be informed and vitalized by love.

It is therefore not only our children who need to be educated in the proper treatment of animals, but our scientists, our religionists, our moralists, and our men of letters. For in spite of the vast progress of humanitarian ideas during the present century, it must be confessed that the popular exponents of western thought are still for the most part quite unable to appreciate the profound truth of those words of Rousseau, which should form the basis of an enlightened system of instruction; "Hommes, soyez humains! C'est votre premier devoir. Quelle sagesse y a-t-il pour vous, hors de l'humanit ["Men, be human! It is your first duty. Which wisdom is there for you, out of humanity?"]

But how is this vast educational change to be inaugurated-let alone accomplished? Like all far-reaching reforms which are promoted by a few believers in the face of the public indifferentism, it can only be carried through by the energy and resolution of its supporters. The efforts which the various humane societies are now making in special directions, each concentrating its attack on a particular abuse, must be supplemented and strengthened by a crusade-an intellectual, literary, and social crusade-against the central cause of oppression, viz. [*37]

     There is one name that will shake the hearts of Rationalists and Humanitarians when it comes to freedom in education: Tempest Smith. She was a twelve year old girl who killed herself. Upon opening and reading her diary, investigators discovered that she had killed herself due to students teasing her at school and how teachers and administration turned a blind eye. This young student, a child of education, a pupil of life, was tormented relentlessly and without regard for her care at all. Upon discovery of this ridicule, teachers and principals secretly smile, and the reasons behind it make it all the more perverse. Tempest Smith was not a Christian yet all her classmates were. They taunted her, screaming, "Jesus loves you!" Apparently their own god is capable of more than they are. Night after night, the tortures went on. Tempest chose the black shroud of death than the horror-filled darkness of life -- she hung herself. Upon her death, it can only be assumed that the hearts of the brute beasts who ignored her tears were aflame with joy, or perhaps the administration of the school had realized that ignoring her pains was a bad choice. A news report explains what happened...

The mother of a 12-year-old girl who committed suicide five months ago has filed a $10-million lawsuit against the Lincoln Park School District, claiming school administrators turned a blind eye to students who teased the girl about her religious beliefs.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court Tuesday, also charges the school district with religious discrimination.

School district officials could not be reached for comment. Randall Kite, superintendent of the Lincoln Park School District, did not return several phone calls.

After Lincoln Park Middle School student Tempest Smith hanged herself from her bunk bed on Feb. 20, many of the girl's classmates came to the funeral expressing guilt for having teased her so relentlessly. Much of the teasing revolved around Tempest's belief in Wicca, a pagan religion.

According to Tempest's journal, found under her bed after the suicide, her classmates often crowded around her chanting "Jesus loves you," along with other comments that ridiculed her Wiccan beliefs.

Attorneys for Tempest's mother, Denessa Smith, claim school employees violated the girl's civil rights because they knew about the teasing, but did nothing to stop it. That indifference contributed to the girl's suicide, they claim.

"If it would've been a Christian kid being teased, you can bet they would've done something," said Smith's attorney, Joel Sklar. "But the Lincoln Park School District has historically discriminated against followers of Wicca."

Sklar referred to a 1999 case in which high school student Crystal Seifferly sued the Lincoln Park School District because she was banned from wearing jewelry depicting the five-pointed star that is the symbol of pagan faith. In that case, a U.S. district judge ruled that the district's policy violated Seifferly's religious rights, and the school district's ban on Wiccan jewelry was overturned.

"Tempest Smith had a right to practice her religion without being taunted in school," Sklar said. "And the school staff had a duty to respond to that taunting. They didn't. We contend that the school district has shown a pattern of indifference, and perhaps hostility, to those students who follow another religion that's not Judeo-Christian in nature."

Denessa Smith said she told her daughter's teachers and counselors about the teasing. "We had several conversations about what my daughter was going through," Smith said. "I was trying to get them to do something about it. But nobody did anything."

Smith hopes the lawsuit will force the school district to adopt anti-teasing measures. "There should be rules in place, so that children in the future won't have to experience what my daughter went through," Smith said. [*38]

     There will always be a flower that whispers her name, as long as those of us remember her. This is not a question about education. In general, it is a question about the humaneness of the ruling administration of schools. The words of all the human languages put together cannot properly describe how heartless these people are -- how entirely careless they are, to let a student cry and suffer because she does not worship the same god. The malicious administration which help contempt for Tempest did not travel the road of education. They traveled the road of vice. The life of Tempest Smith will not be avenged until every educator knows in his heart that students deserve rights to expression and conscience. When students may go to school without fearing ridicule or intolerance, when schools become a place of learning and not suppression, then the life of Tempest Smith will be avenged. Until then, every Humanitarian has an undying duty to work for better schools and freedom of students.

     Judging from the methods by which teachers today impose their rules and regulations, it is more likely that they have engrossed themselves in the works of Machiavelli and Stalin than in the works of Ferrer and Dewey. They are monsters, ignoramuses incapable of grasping or understanding anything humane or rational, and certainly not capable of imparting any kind of knowledge. There are some teachers who genuinely desire to open the minds of inquisitive children and fill them with knowledge, but they are few and far between. Students have been expelled for refusing to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, and there still remains animosity from teachers for those who refuse to stand for it. The schools of our time have segregated the races, forced religion down the throats of unknowing students, censored books from being read, unlawfully searched and seized property of students for minor school offenses, censored school newspapers, inaugurated school prayers, censored expression, unjustly suspended students, among other cruel atrocities, including forced school uniforms The school environment is not a learning one at all. The teachers and principals are blindfolded and continue to seek education, all the while stepping and crushing the very basic principles of a real education. Some rights for students have been won and some have been lost, but as the courts have proven fully, they believe that students are worth less than the educated, offering them fewer rights than anyone else.

"Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard." [*39]

Resources

*1. "Our Schools," by Robert Green Ingersoll.
*2. This has happened to myself as well as several of my colleagues at our High School.
*3. Supreme Court: WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), 319 U.S. 624. Argued March 11, 1943. Decided June 14, 1943.
*4. Adopted January 9, 1942. Quoted from the West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
*5. 1851(1), West Virginia Code (1941 Supp). Quoted from the West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
*6. Francisco Ferrer, Origin and Ideals of the Modern School, chapter 5-6, published 1913.
*7. Discourses, Epictetus, Roman philosopher.
*8. Wash. Rev. Code 9.81.010 (5). Quoted from Supreme Court case of Baggett v. Bullitt, 1964.
*9. Supreme Court: BAGGETT v. BULLITT, 377 U.S. 360 (1964), 377 U.S. 360. Argued March 24, 1964. Decided June 1, 1964.
*10. Ibidem, Oath Form A, in Foote note 3.
*11. U.S. Supreme Court: GREEN v. COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, 391 U.S. 430 (1968), 391 U.S. 430. Argued April 3, 1968. Decided May 27, 1968.
*12. U.S. Supreme Court: TINKER v. DES MOINES SCHOOL DIST., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), 393 U.S. 503. Argued November 12, 1968. Decided February 24, 1969.
*13. Ibidem.
*14. Ibidem.
*15. Initiated Act No. 1, Ark. Acts 1929; Ark. Stat. Ann. 80-1627, 80-1628 (1960 Repl. Vol.) Quoted from U.S. Supreme Court: EPPERSON v. ARKANSAS, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), 393 U.S. 97. Argued October 16, 1968. Decided November 12, 1968.
*16. Homo Neanderthalensis, by H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, June 29, 1925.
*17. U.S. Supreme Court: EPPERSON v. ARKANSAS, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), 393 U.S. 97. Argued October 16, 1968. Decided November 12, 1968.
*18. Scientific American, July 2000, page 83.
*19. U.S. Supreme Court: GOSS v. LOPEZ, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), 419 U.S. 565. Argued October 16, 1974. Decided January 22, 1975.
*20. Ibidem.
*21. Animals' Rights, by Henry Stephens Salt and Albert Leffingwell, part II, chapter 2, 1891.
*22. American Library Association website.
*23. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan, pages 261, published by Ballantine Books.
*24. American Library Association website, The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell ranked #57 in the list of most challenged books.
*25. Following the Equator; Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
*26. American Library Association website.
*27. U.S. Supreme Court: BOARD OF EDUCATION v. PICO, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), 457 U.S. 853. Argued March 2, 1982. Decided June 25, 1982.
*28. NEW JERSEY v. T. L. O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985), 469 U.S. 325. Argued March 28, 1984 Reargued October 2, 1984. Decided January 15, 1985.
*29. Ibidem.
*30. Ibidem.
*31. U.S. Supreme Court: HAZELWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT v. KUHLMEIER, 484 U.S. 260 (1988), 484 U.S. 260. Argued October 13, 1987. Decided January 13, 1988.
*32. Ibidem, Footnote 9.
*33. U.S. Supreme Court: ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), 374 U.S. 203. Argued February 27-28, 1963. Decided June 17, 1963.
*34. Ibidem.
*35. U.S. Supreme Court: LEE v. WEISMAN, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), 505 U.S. 577. Argued November 6, 1991. Decided June 24, 1992.
*36. Ibidem.
*37. Animals' Rights, by Henry Stephens Salt and Albert Leffingwell, part I, chapter 8, 1891.
*38. "Teasing sparks $10 million lawsuit," Lincoln Park district accused of religious bias in girl's suicide, By George Hunter / The Detroit News.
*39. Supreme Court: WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), 319 U.S. 624. Argued March 11, 1943. Decided June 14, 1943.

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