Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 30, 1995 TAG: 9511300048
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Declining this week to hear Settle's appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court in effect upheld lower-court rulings against her and in favor of the Dickson, Tenn., schools. Students, those courts said, do not have a First Amendment right to set the content of their coursework.
How things could be otherwise is difficult to see. Nonetheless, some on the religious right have made Settle's case a cause celebre. What happened to her, they say, is an example of public education's hostility to religion.
Settle was a ninth-grader in Dickson when in 1991 she submitted a research paper on the life of Christ, despite her teacher's instruction to choose another topic, and got a zero for her efforts. From that arose the constitutional claim that her free-speech rights had been violated.
The justices, who didn't give reasons for declining to hear her appeal, may have rejected it on the ground that, with Settle now out of high school, the case was moot. Or they may have declined because the precedent for curriculum control by school officials, rather than students, is so strong.
In a 1988 ruling, the Supreme Court said school administrators could control speech in student newspapers and other activities if the control is "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns." By this standard, Settle's case was weaker than the students' case in the '88 ruling. Not only is a research paper a particularly clear and central part of the curriculum, but the "legitimate pedagogical concerns" behind the rejection of her topic are particularly compelling.
One of those concerns, according to her teacher's testimony, was fear that the depth of Settle's faith might lead her to misconstrue criticisms of the grammar or organization of such a paper as criticism of her beliefs. In an important sense, rejecting the topic was an example of respect for, not hostility to, a student's religion.
Another concern was fulfilling an important aim of the assignment: researching an unfamiliar topic. If broadening one's knowledge, and learning how to broaden one's knowledge, isn't at the heart of education, what is?
by CNB