It’s been just about 46 years since the Supreme Court first said clearly that the people in positions of authority in the schools must not, under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, promote any particular religion. That includes administrators, teachers, bureaucrats and therapists, among others. It also includes substitute teachers.
That brings us to this morning. A little group of girls walking into the high school math class I was subbing for today looked over towards the desk, saw me, and said things along the lines of “We’ve got you? Wow!” One girl even stuck her head back out into the hall and called to a friend: “Hey, Casey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ve got Ms. C.!” I’ve been greeted enthusiastically before, but this was a whole new level. Then the assistant principle came in to tell the class that if they didn’t behave, I was to send them to the office forthwith. I agreed that I would do so, adding that I didn’t expect trouble; I’d not had any previously. (I had none today either; I had only to say “Please do ‘X’” and it was done without a murmur. Liking does not mean lack of respect.) When he had left, I asked the girl nearest me what was going on – and the floodgates opened. It seems the sub they had last was auditioning for evangelical b**** of the year. Not only was her idea of maintaining order to scream at them, but she targeted one particular child and would not leave her alone. “Jesus wants you” was quoted to me, as was “Repent and return to Jesus”. The girl in question dresses as a goth, and wears a pentacle. She’s also quiet, polite, very bright and very hard-working. Everyone was angry on her behalf, even the kids I knew came from evangelical families.
I was stunned. The separation of religion and school has been clear for nearly half a century. Nor need you be an attorney to be aware of it. It’s in the news at intervals. I’ve never met a parent who didn’t know that’s how it was supposed to be, however they felt about it. I blew the proverbial gasket. The kids know, because I’ve let them see, that I’m multi-dimensional. They’ve seen my costume drawings in my sketch book. They’ve seen me hemming a cloak. They’ve heard me toss in the random bit of social history that puts some action or other in perspective in terms of the attitude of its time. And they know I’m a lawyer, who is choosing to be a mom. So when I told the child in question, in front of the whole class, that what that sub had done was not only inappropriate and rude but also illegal and that she should report it to the principal, they listened, and started asking questions. They were good ones, too; they were eager for something they could actually think about instead of just memorize. So the first quarter-hour of that class wasn’t spent on Algebra, but I think that bunch of Freshmen got a good if impromptu lesson in Constitutional rights. The kid herself was rather stunned, and very grateful to have another authority figure supporting her so unequivocally. She came up to talk to me when the others started to work on their assignments, asking me why this was so personal an issue for me. So I told her. We talked for another 20 minutes. I asked her, at one point, if she wanted me to help her with the assignment since we’d spent almost the whole class period talking. She smiled and brushed it aside, saying that math was easy and she was getting an A, and would get it done in study hall.
The Bill of Rights forbids the government from establishing or supporting any particular religion. There was good cause for that: the excesses and persecutions of Protestant monarchs against Catholic subjects, and of Catholic monarchs against Protestant subjects, were still very recent when the Bill of Rights was written. The Jacobite Rebellions in England, a conflict between the Catholic James II and the Protestant William and Mary, had ended in 1745. The stories of the Protestant Huguenot exodus from France, escaping massacres that would probably now be characterized as “ethnic cleansing”, would have been part of family stories about parents and grandparents. Paul Revere’s father was one of those immigrants, settling in Boston; Revere would have absorbed that awareness of what a government-supported Church could do along with his lessons in silver craft.
That didn’t mean all was smooth sailing thereafter, of course. But in 1962 the Supreme Court said very specifically that no one religion could be presented in a public school, where the kids are a captive audience. I’m glad that’s the current standard, not only as an attorney, but as a parent. I’ve been asked, now and again, what I “have against religion”. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I am, in my own life, a deeply religious person. But I don’t want anyone in school, where my child has no choice but to go, teaching him religion. That’s both our job and our right, mine and my husband’s; if we delegate to other teachers, we choose them, and know that they will, for the most part, teach him the same things we would. The same is true for every child in a public school. School is a place for learning everything from science to social skills, but it is not a place for learning how to be [insert religion or lack thereof of your choice here.]
So the arrogance of this woman, whom the children do not respect and actively despise, strikes a very personal chord. I told the assistant principal about it, telling him all I knew except the name of the girl in question, because she’d asked me not to. I think the child is hoping that I and that other sub will be there on the same day. And in a way, I hope so too. I’m still boiling on behalf of a child who couldn’t defend herself, couldn’t tell that woman to go away and leave her alone, was nearly in tears just thinking about the experience. I’d relish the chance to tell Ms. Evangalist that the separation of Church and State has not expired.