Anyone who has spent any extended period of time in a public high school, either as an employee or student, knows that discrimination exists in these purported bastions of tolerance and diversity. Just ask any conservative Christian teen — especially those teens who take their faith seriously. For example, ask the members of the extracurricular club “Growing in Faith Together” (GIFT) at Glenbard South High School in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn.

Members of GIFT have experienced resistance from the administration, particularly from Principal Terri Hanrahan, for the better part of this school year. Among other things, Principal Hanrahan initially told students that they could not put up posters promoting their club, something that all other extracurricular clubs can do. Then she prohibited students from spelling out on their signs what the acronym GIFT stands for, saying that students cannot include the word “faith” on their posters. GIFT students accommodated that inappropriate request, got approval for their new posters which they put up around the school only to have the administration remove them.

More recently, Glenbard South had a freshman orientation night for next year’s incoming freshmen. GIFT was excluded from the materials that listed extracurricular clubs and activities. While the gay-straight alliance P.R.I.S.M. is included on the Glenbard South’s school activities webpage for students, GIFT is excluded.

Glenbard South parents have repeatedly told Ms. Hanrahan that she is in violation of the Equal Access Act which requires schools to treat all extracurricular clubs the same, but to no avail. Ms. Hanrahan is either troublingly ignorant of the Equal Access Act or she is deliberately violating it. In either case, her decisions may prove costly to District 87.

Here is a recent letter that a family sent to Superintendent Michael Meissen about this issue:

During the school year 2009-2010 a group of Glenbard South Christian students began meeting in the same room and with the same school sponsor as a previously existing student Bible club. The students wanted to meet for the purpose of getting to know each other better and to grow in their Christian faith together. Over the course of time, these students decided to refocus their meetings and to begin to call their group, Growing In Faith Together. The club grew. The two leaders of the club were seniors and graduated in 2010.

My son and another student were selected to be leaders of the GIFT club for the present school year 2010-11. When school began last fall, my son and others began to resume meetings for GIFT. They made posters to post in the hallway to give meeting information. The posters included the name of their club, Growing in Faith Together. These students were told by the school administration that they could not put up their posters, because the word “Faith” was on the poster. They were told that “because of separation of church and state,” their poster could not be allowed. They were told they could use only the acronym GIFT.

Subsequently, the students made a new set of posters. This time the posters used the acronym GIFT to advertise the club. They took the new posters to the administration and the new posters were approved for posting. The students put up the posters, but after school a few days later, the posters were removed from the walls, presumably by the administration. The students were not contacted.

Several parents contacted the school administration, Ms. Hanrahan in particular, and asked for some explanation of what had happened to the posters and why. This time, I and other parents were told that the posters were removed because they implied “faith formation” was happening at Glenbard South. We were told that South could not be considered in any way to be aligned with spiritual formation.

I contacted Ms. Hanrahan and asked her to reverse her decision that the name GIFT could not be used. I found her decision to be in violation of the Equal Access Act. I got no response at all from Ms. Hanrahan until three weeks later when I told her I would contact the superintendent unless she responded before the upcoming Friday afternoon. Late that Friday afternoon, I received a note from her that she would allow the acronym GIFT to be used (but only the acronym).

Recently, at the incoming freshmen orientation and during the registration process, I learned that all incoming students received registration materials that included a list of Glenbard South activities and clubs that they could participate in as new high school students. However, the GIFT club was not included on the list. When a parent contacted Ms. Hanrahan for the reasoning behind this, she indicated that GIFT was not a school-sponsored club despite the fact that GIFT had been meeting for over a year on Glenbard South’s campus, has a faculty sponsor, and is student-led.

Based on my understanding of the Equal Access Law, Glenbard South is engaging in discrimination and violating the Equal Access Act. I would like to see the situation rectified immediately. I would like the Glenbard South administration to demonstrate by word and action that they will allow the GIFT student club to be treated exactly the same as other student clubs at Glenbard South. I would like the school to refrain from censoring the name of the student-led club. I would like their posters to be allowed up, including the name they choose-not just the acronym. I would like the school to include the GIFT club in any materials in which other student-led clubs are listed, including the school’s web site. Other Glenbard high schools do list Christian groups among their club listings on their school web sites. I would like the school to allow GIFT to make student announcements as are other clubs and also to be allowed to be included in the school year book.

Thank you very much for your attention to this serious matter.

If we hope to repair the damage done to public education by “progressive” ideologues whose views dominate not only school administrations and faculties but also schools and departments of education that train future teachers, we need an army of parents like these parents. We need parents who have the wisdom to recognize error and the courage to do something about it, even if the necessary action is personally costly. We need parents and community members who understand that we must not ignore or dismiss problems because they seem trivial. It is the slow accretion of little offenses like this one at Glenbard South that has resulted in huge, systemic problems. And we have to persevere. We must not continue to be short-sighted, weak-willed, fearful, or lazy while the other side perseveres tenaciously with the long view always in mind.

*Illinois Family Institute contacted both Principal Hanrahan and Superintendent Meissen for comment, but our calls were not returned.

State Representative Dan Burke (D-Chicago) is the lead sponsor of House Resolution 254 that, as of today, Friday, May 13, states the following:

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we recognize that the programs listed in this resolution are all qualified to teach character development, and that we acknowledge that the Good Choices Program, by virtue of the fact that it teaches common sense guidelines covering specific tools to help children evaluate situations and make good decisions that will improve life for themselves and others, is one example of a program fully in compliance with Section 27-12 of the School Code, as it seeks to enhance the character development and potential future moral judgment of the children of this State and, therefore, encourages its use and the use of similar programs by educators, coaches, mentors, and other community service leaders.

There are several problems with this resolution.

First, spending valuable work time offering formal kudos to particular curricula seems a waste of the salaries we taxpayers pay our legislators.

Second, apparently some of our legislators, like some school board members, curricula review committees, and department chairs, don’t bother to research carefully the curricula they endorse. Fortunately, we have leaders like State Reprepresentative Jerry Mitchell (R-Sterling) who discovered that one of the curricula Dan Burke is seeking to endorse is the “Good Choices Program” which is based on the writings of the controversial founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. My concern is less with Resolution 254 and more with the Good Choices Program.

Integral to the Good Choices Program is Hubbard’s book, The Way to Happiness, and a video presentation of the 21 moral precepts which are found in his book. Many of the ideas in the Good Choices Program are critical to the healthy functioning of any society, but those ideas are not exclusive to the Good Choices Program or to self-actualization guru L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard has merely repackaged some of the moral truths revealed to man by God through both general revelation (truths written on men’s hearts) and special revelation (the Bible). In fact, many of Hubbard’s moral precepts, which are central to the Good Choices Program, correspond to Bible verses. Unfortunately, the Good Choices Program does not attribute these truths to the God of the Old and New Testaments. It attributes them to L. Ron Hubbard.

The Good Choices Program posits that moral rectitude and good works are the “way to happiness.” While moral rectitude makes for a healthier society and prevents a great deal of suffering, a life of good works and moral rectitude alone cannot bring real happiness. Real happiness can be found only in submission to the will of God.

And there are yet more troubling ideas promoted in the Good Choices Program. Here are a few:

• “What is true is what is true for you… . Think your own way through things, accept what is true for you, discard the rest.”This raises the question: if truth is subjective, as this statement asserts it is, then are the 21 moral precepts objectively true? This statement is also antithetical to the Bible, which teaches that “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Prov. 28:26).
• “Happiness lies in engaging in worthwhile activities. But there is only one person who for certain can tell what will make one happy–oneself.” These teachings reveal both the primacy of works and the primacy of self in Hubbard’s false religion, both of which are incompatible with a Christian world view.
• “Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others” Scripture has this to say about other religions: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2 John 7-11). Christians have no obligation to respect, which means “to regard with honor or esteem,” ideas that are false and destructive.
• “Flourish and Prosper: the real way to defeat [your enemies] is to flourish and prosper…. if one flourishes and prospers, one certainly will wind up the victor. And, hopefully, without harming a single hair on their heads.” Here’s what Scripture says about dealing with our enemies, about God’s sovereignty, and about prosperity: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt.5:44-45).
• “If one does not survive, no joy and no happiness are obtainable. …Any individual or group seeks to obtain from life what pleasure and freedom from pain that they can. Your own survival can be threatened by the bad actions of others around you. Your own happiness can be turned to tragedy and sorrow by the dishonesty and misconduct of others…. Such wrongs reduce one’s survival and impair one’s happiness. You are important to other people. You are listened to. You can influence others…. It is in your power to point the way to a less dangerous and happier life.” The assertions regarding pleasure and pain suggest an Epicurean view of life, which is also incompatible with Christianity. Scripture teaches, for example, that “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

This is not the first time Scientologists have fomented controversy by trying to get Hubbard’s ideas into public schools, and the Good Choices Program is currently used in many school districts. The problem is not just with some of the ideas present in the curriculum, however. The problem is also with the potential for this curriculum to lead children to “The Way of Happiness” website and thereby expose them more deeply to the false religion of the Church of Scientology. *

If a character-building curriculum based on the teachings of the founder of the Church of Scientology is acceptable in our Illinois public schools, then I assume a character-building curriculum based on the teachings of the “founder” of Christianity would be equally acceptable.

If moral precepts derived from the religious beliefs of L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology are acceptable in public schools, I assume the moral precepts of the Old Testament and New Testament — and from which Hubbard derived those of his precepts that have value — are equally acceptable in public schools.

The final troubling aspect of this mini-tempest concerns the maturity and judgment of some of our lawmakers. Scientologist Nancy Cartwright, the actress who provides the voice of Bart Simpson, came to Springfield to promote the Good Choices Program. The Chicago Sun Times reported that Representative “Burke said he became enthusiastic about backing the resolution because it would be ‘fun to have Bart Simpson’s voice down there,’ (in Springfield). And the Chicago Tribune reported that Burke said “he couldn’t resist the novelty of a celebrity endorsement.” Seriously? We have a lawmaker who endorses a resolution because he’s bedazzled by celebrity? Is this the message we want our leaders to convey, either in word or deed? Do we want our leaders to encourage the cult of celebrity that so besots American society? Do we really want leaders who are so besotted? I think not.

* For more on Scientology, click HERE.

Thank you for your emails and calls!

We have some very good news to report. Superintendent Michael Meissen of District 87, which includes Glenbard South High School, just sent a gracious letter to the parents who expressed their concern about the violation of the federal Equal Access Act regarding the Christian club “Growing in Faith Together” (GIFT).

In this email, he acknowledged that the school “erred…when asking the GIFT club to use exclusively the GIFT acronym, instead of allowing the group to use the full name of Growing in Faith Together.” That apology was not exactly accurate in that Principal Terri Hanrahan did not ask students not to use the full name; she forbade them to use it. Nonetheless, the acknowledgement of error is a good thing.

Dr. Meissen also stated that “prior decisions regarding the GIFT club were not made with the intent of disadvantaging the group, although it is clear that we created at least that appearance.”

He explained that “Public school districts face a very difficult obligation to balance the rights of students of faith, while trying to avoid entanglement with ‘church and state’ issues raised by those who seek to keep schools free of any reference to religion.” In regard to non-school-sponsored clubs, however, that balancing problem was solved in 1984 with the passage of the federal Equal Access Act, of which Ms. Hanrahan was apprised by parents last fall and which she ignored. The Equal Access Act requires schools to treat faith-based, non-school-sponsored clubs exactly like any other non-school-sponsored club regardless of whether that bothers secularists and atheists.

Dr. Meissen further explained that going forward GIFT “may have the full name of the group displayed on posters put up in the school….We will also include the GIFT club where other non-school sponsored student groups are listed. As for the website, we will be working on a unified practice for all schools (in District 87) as it appears the schools are inconsistent regarding which clubs are listed on their respective websites. [T]he GIFT club will be permitted inclusion in the school yearbook consistent with the level of inclusion provided to other non-school sponsored student groups.” Dr. Meissen also said that he “will continue to monitor this situation to make sure that going forward the GIFT club is given the same consideration as other non-school sponsored student groups.”

All of this turmoil could have been avoided if seven months ago Principal Hanrahan had responded as wisely, fairly, graciously — and in accordance with the law — as Dr. Meissen did today.

IFI would like to thank all of our subscribers who took the time to express their concerns to Ms. Hanrahan, Dr. Meissen, and the District 87 Board of Education.

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In Part 1 of this two-part article about a recent dust-up at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, I discussed English teacher Christine Wascher’s decision to teach meditative techniques as a means of helping “students forge a deeper connection to the text.” The text she was teaching was Paul Coelho’s The Alchemist. As reported in a Trib Local article, Superintendent Jill Hawk said, “In this case, we had a teacher using a creative activity to engage her students in good literature.”

This statement confirms what I have previously written about the teaching of English: the beauty of teaching English is that teachers can always find ways to rationalize the teaching of whatever they want to teach, including controversial texts and activities that undermine traditional values. They just assert that these texts or activities cultivate higher order thinking skills, or critical thinking skills, or research skills, or the teaching of literary terms, or that they connect thematically to other texts being taught, or they help engage students, or they’re creative. We’re dupes. Virtually any piece of writing could be used to fulfill those purposes. English curricula, like the pants I prefer to wear on Thanksgiving, are delightfully expansive because justifications for it are marvelously elastic.

I bet someone as creative as Ms. Wascher could come up with other activities to help students forge a deep connection to The Alchemist, perhaps some that are less religious and alchemical than TM.

Educators are masters of rhetorical manipulation — or in many cases poor thinking. For example, when Hawk says “creative,” she likely means unusual, which doesn’t necessarily mean effective, appropriate, or substantive. And what she refers to as “good literature,” Joe Queenan described as “mind-numbing kitsch” in the New York Times “Sunday Book Review.”

A blogger wrote this piquant review of The Alchemist. I’m posting almost the entire review in the hope that parents will pay closer attention to the substandard caliber of literature that many English teachers are choosing, particularly contemporary texts:

The Alchemist is the bastard child of…the Self-Help And Actualization Movement (SHAM if you like, a movement exposed well in a recent book of the same title by author Steve Salerno, which I ironically just happened to read about a week before starting The Alchemist, and which I highly recommend you read instead of the Alchemist). It is SHAM cross-pollinated with Antoine de Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince and the fundamental plot structure of a particular story from Jalal al-Din Rumi’s Mathanawi entitled “In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad.” Unfortunately, it lacks both the charm and originality of The Little Prince, and while the simplicity of Rumi’s story had a certain appeal, that was way back in the 13th century when it was originally written. Here, today, in the 21st century, The Alchemist comes across as nothing more than a calculated but clumsy fable, largely plagiarized from other sources and overly reliant on cheap cliche, written to appeal to the sort of hazy quasi-mystical sense of self and “higher purpose” that many people seem to find so appealing.

When I say it is clumsy, I mean that only in a literary sense. What he lacks in literary skill, Coelho makes up for in an ability to read the mentality (and literacy level) of the modern consumer and gauge exactly what it is they want to hear about themselves. He is as good at it as Tony Robbins, Tommy Lasorda, Deeprak Chopra, and all the other peddlers of “personal empowerment” who have grown tremendously rich despite having just about nothing of actual substance to offer. He is a miserable writer, but a tremendous businessman, and has done a marvelous job of making himself a millionaire without offering anything of any real worth at all.

The story is thus – a nomadic shepherd boy in Spain has a dream about a mysterious treasure. He consults a fortune-teller about his dream, who tells him he needs to go to the pyramids in Egypt. He then conveniently bumps into a Wise Old Man (who we know is a Wise Old Man because he talks about Personal Legends), who randomly bequeaths upon him the Stones of Uma Thurman, which I guess vibrate with Force Feedback or something when you are near hidden treasure (Coelho may have cribbed a bit of this from the Legend of Zelda as well). He then goes on a long journey through Africa, encountering just about every fantasy, religious and bedtime-story cliche that has ever appeared in the world of literature. Eventually he winds up finding out that the treasure was right back where he started from, but of course, he meets the Love Of His Life along the way and all ends with sunshine and roses and fairy kisses for everyone involved.

As summarized by the back of the book jacket, the main message of the story is that “One’s only obligation in life is to pursue one’s Personal Legend”. Playing perfectly off the alienation, lack of spiritual and communal fulfillment, lack of real culture and tradition, and inherent selfishness and consumption-based acquisitiveness of the vast majority of his readers, Coelho delivers a message and a fable that tells you simply to do whatever you want to do – so long as you really, really-weely believe, the Universe will magically make it all work somehow (I suppose we can presume, then, that Ken Lay was merely following his Personal Legend when he bilked and defrauded everyone involved with Enron, and that perhaps Hitler was merely Following His Heart when he gassed legions of Jews as well).

Unexplained is whether selfish or amoral Personal Legends are granted by the Universe (the ultimate goal of the shepherd boy’s journey is in fact a pile of actual gold, leading one to wonder if Coelho is claiming that materialism and wealth is all that really matters in the end). And what happens when two Personal Legends directly conflict with or contradict each other? Also unexplained. How is the worthiness of a Personal Legend judged, and by who or what exactly? Coelho’s flimsy structure blows over like a paper shack when faced with any sort of serious scrutiny or critical examination. It was not designed to withstand intelligent investigation. It was designed for people who will accept whatever feel-good nonsense they read unquestioningly. It was designed for people who want to take whatever whim they are currently experiencing, be it the desire to Be An Actress or the desire to Start A Business, and invest it with some Deeper Mystical Meaning that also, conveniently, gives them license to act in a selfish and inconsiderate way in pursuit of their goal.

Amongst other gems of doublethink in the story, Coelho claims that “the universe protects drunks, the elderly and children” … well, except when it doesn’t, I guess, which happens all the time, such as the recent earthquake in China which did not seem to discriminate a bit in it’s victim-taking.

And if something goes wrong in your Quest to fulfill Your Personal Journey? Well, as with all other forms of SHAM, you failed to Follow Your Heart properly. It’s your fault. You need further study – may we suggest by starting with Warrior Of The Light: A Manual, Coelho’s “companion” work to the Alchemist?

The book would be easily dismissed as utter nonsense, and its adherents as getting what they deserve, if there were simply not so many of them, and if they were not so rabid and cult-like in their worship of the book. Indeed, this book seems to have become a sort of new quasi-religion for many people. Check out the Amazon reviews for it – not the best source of quality literary criticism, I grant you, but an excellent place to take the general pulse of how the average reader is responding to a work. The positive reviews, which outweigh the negative by nearly one thousand, often contain some variant of “If you don’t like this book, or are critical of it, it’s because you JUST DON’T GET IT.” I would offer a counter-argument. If you like this book, it is because you do not get it. You are apparently not equipped to realize you are being thoroughly snowjobbed…. note that the author professes to be a “black magician” in the tradition of that other famous Latin-American huckster author, Carlos Castaneda.

The Alchemist’s ultimate contribution to world culture, ultimately, is not literary. It is that it serves as an exemplary sign of how overwhelmingly many people there are who are poorly read, who are incapable of even basic critical thought, and how easy it is for even a clumsy snake-oil salesman to become a “guru” in this idiotic and under-educated era.

This incident raises the question, should parents and other taxpayers have any input on curricular choices? Many teachers firmly believe they should not. Certainly, parents should not dictate curricula, but should they have no input? Some argue that taxpayers have input through the election of school board members, but is that accurate?

School boards have virtually nothing to do with curricula. It’s teachers, department chairs, and curriculum directors who decide curricula. But, some counter, taxpayers hire school board members who then hire teachers. The reality, however, is that school boards for the most part merely rubber stamp the hiring recommendations of department chairs.

To summarize, taxpayers have the ability to hire school board members who have nothing to do with curricula and virtually nothing to do with hiring, therefore, taxpayers have virtually nothing to say about the most important aspects of education. The only influence taxpayers have on curricula is remote to non-existent.

So, how can taxpayers ensure that teachers promote shared community values or prevent activist teachers from using curricula, taxpayer money, and their coveted autonomy to try to shape the moral and political beliefs of students? And how can taxpayers ensure that teachers are choosing literature for its literary value rather than whether it treats race, gender, class, homosexuality, and “spirituality” in politically correct ways? I would argue that the politically driven, intellectually vacuous, and morally bankrupt leadership of many contemporary educators who view themselves as “agents of change” necessitates a diminution of their autonomy. Because academic ideologues have exploited their roles as public employees and lost sight of their roles as public servants, they should lose the autonomy they have arrogantly abused.

One way to prevent teachers from exploiting their access to public money and other people’s children is to establish three district policies regarding controversial topics:

• Curricular parity policy: such policy would require teachers who choose to teach resources that address controversial topics (e.g., feminism, abortion, premarital sex, reproductive technologies, homosexuality, Gender Identity Disorder, climate change, Critical Race Theory, and “social justice”) to spend equal time having students study resources that present opposing, competing, or dissenting ideas.
• Staff/professional development parity policy: such policy would require that if staff development opportunities are provided in which resources on controversial topics are studied (e.g., “enumerated” anti-bullying curricula, “teaching for social justice,” Critical Race Theory, or Critical Pedagogy), equivalent staff development opportunities must be provided in which opposing, competing, or dissenting views are studied.
• Professionalism policy for teachers: such policy would explicitly prohibit teachers from expressing their moral, political, or philosophical views on controversial topics. This policy will likely be met with vociferous opposition primarily from teachers who hold “progressive” views and see themselves as “agents of change.” Most conservative teachers would welcome such policy.

The good news is that thanks to the vigilance and courage of two wise fathers, neither the Vagina Dance nor meditation techniques are being taught at Prairie Ridge High School.

Forward this email to a friend.

Last week Peter Geddeis, the director of student activities at Lyons Township High School, sent the entire staff and faculty an email in which he said the following (emphasis added):

On Friday, April 15, a number of our students will be participating in the National Day of Silence, sponsored by our PRISM (gay-straight alliance) club. On this day you will see some students wearing rainbow ribbons, Day of Silence t-shirts, and/or mainly black clothing. These students will not be speaking all day as they take a day-long vow of silence to echo the silence endured by LGBTA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Allies…. Please understand and be respectful toward students who choose not to speak on this day.

Students participating in the Day of Silence must attend an orientation session this week or next, which will explain clearly the expectations of the day. These students will receive Day of Silence buttons, which will denote their participation in this year’s event. Student participants will remain silent all day, including in class and in social situations, so please honor their choice to remain silent as best you can. However, these students will be informed that if a teacher or other staff member insists they answer a question, be part of a discussion, or engage in conversation, they should do so – this is a day of awareness, not defiance.

PRISM has prepared a short piece that teachers can read to their classes prior to the Day of Silence….

I know that with the cooperation of the students and staff, the Day of Silence will again be a success. If you have any questions, please contact me or Gail White (PRISM Sponsor).

Mr. Geddeis was careful and deliberate with his rhetoric. Although he does tell staff and faculty that students will be informed that if asked to speak, “they should do so,” he phrased it in a manipulative way. He said if teachers or staff members “insist,” which, as a friend points out, puts the burden on teachers to insist. What would “insisting” involve? Repeatedly asking? Demanding in an authoritarian way? Threatening disciplinary action?

Mr. Geddeis also told staff and faculty that they should “be respectful toward students who choose not to speak on this day,” and to “honor their choice to remain silent.” Someone needs to ask Mr. Geddeis and his administration, how exactly teachers would demonstrate respect for and honor students’ refusal to speak. How does Mr. Geddeis think teachers can demonstrate respect for and honor students’ refusal to speak other than allowing them to refuse to speak?

This email was intended to manipulate staff and faculty into allowing student silence and to instill fear in those teachers who “insist” that students participate verbally in class. Sounds like rhetorical bullying to me. It would be far better for the school environment for Mr. Geddeis to support teachers who want to depoliticize their classroom by eliminating controversial political action.

What Mr. Geddeis should have told staff and faculty is that according to the ACLU and the homosexual activist law firm Lambda Legal students have no Constitutional or legal right to refuse to speak during class. And in his email to staff, Geddeis should have said the following:

These students will be informed that if a teacher or other staff member asks them a question, or to be part of a discussion, of to engage in a conversation, they should do so. Students have also been told that they have no Constitutional or legal right to refuse to speak during class. Finally, students have been told that they should respect and honor teachers’ decisions to expect student participation in class.

As of Monday, April 11th, the Day of Silence provided a link to a Gay-Straight Alliances Facebook page which in turn has a link to “photos” with additional links. A visit to this page reveals how little the Day of Silence has to do with bullying and how much it has to do with affirming and celebrating deviant sexuality.

One link is a photo of five young, shirtless Thai men that takes students to this website: HERE.

Another seven links take students to this website (warning: extremely graphic material): HERE.

According to the Day of Silence website, “hundreds of thousands of students nationwide take a vow of silence,” and yet many school administrators claim the Day of Silence is not disruptive. For those who naively believe that the Day of Silence is not disruptive to the classroom, here are some comments from students posted online (printed as posted):

Lexie LoveGood: Last year while doing this one of my lab teachers wanted to make me talk. and i refued to speak he wrote me up. the kids in my lab booed him and said it was my right not to speake the 1st am may state freedom of speach but it also gives me the right not speak. the kids fought with thier voices so i could not be broken. my write up slip was tore up and thrown away.

Ziah Von Heyneman: I remember when I was in High School I went through the same thing. Most of my teachers wanted me to talk but I wouldn’t so they just sent me outside. I did report them the next day to the principle but he didn’t do anything. The only teachers who loved what I was part taking in were my art teacher and stage craft teacher.

Brandin Arsenault: I’m going to organize an event at my school, and get as many people (Middle School: Grade 5-7) to participate.

Many parents have no idea that the Day of Silence takes place annually in their children’s classrooms. Parents are also unaware of how many students, teachers, and administrators dread the Day of Silence. Even as administrators feel compelled to say that the Day of Silence is not disruptive, some — perhaps many — privately know that it is and dislike the disruption and controversy it creates. Even many teachers who hold politically liberal views on the nature and morality of homosexuality dislike the Day of Silence because they simply want to teach their subject matter without having to contend with students’ refusal to speak or with political controversies.

The instigator of the Day of Silence and other homosexuality-affirming days is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). GLSEN’s central goal is not to end bullying. Its central goal is to transform the moral beliefs of the nation’s children through our public schools. Parents must oppose the politicization of public education, or its exploitation by homosexual activist organizations like GLSEN will continue to grow.

Call your children out of school on the Day of Silence if your administration allows students and/or teachers to refuse to speak in class. In most schools the Day of Silence is being held this Friday, April 15. And while you’re at it, you might ask for copies of any emails that were sent to staff and faculty regarding the Day of Silence and forward them to me.

Click HERE to learn more about the Day of Silence Walkout.

NEA and GLSEN Push Schools to Low-Quality Education

In the wave of heated debates about public sector unions, many are evaluating the teaching profession and teachers’ union policies. Are American students being taught to think independently and logically, to evaluate issues critically, to verify and fact-check using multiple and diverse sources?

Or do most schools, pressured by the National Education Association, employ politically biased, emotion-based, left-wing methods and practices that result in censorship and an inability to think critically and logically? Nowhere does this question surface more quickly than on the hot-button issue of homosexuality.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) upcoming “Day of Silence” on April 15 is a perfect example of the way instruction has been corrupted by a leftist political agenda. When most teachers have abandoned direct instruction, also known as lecturing, and, instead, employ interactive methodologies like classroom discussion and small group activities, the Day of Silence calls for all students and teachers to refuse to speak during classes for an entire day. Rather than have students read and discuss the best writing from the best scholars on both sides of the debate, GLSEN calls for political protest and silence in schools.

The NEA has adopted numerous resolutions in recent years supporting homosexuality, same sex unions, and even “gender change.” Its bias is well-established, and school curricula now reflect its strong-arm tactics in propagating only one acceptable viewpoint on this issue.

Responsible schools and independent-minded students should refuse any observance of the “Day of Silence” based on its advocacy group ties, exploitative tactics, and non-factual assumptions, which include the following:

1. The “Day of Silence” is based on the unproven and erroneous assumption that some people are “born gay.” In contemporary academia, so little committed to logic, evidence, and intellectual exploration, no one challenges this assumption, researches it, or demands evidence to support it.

2. DOS claims there is a nationwide epidemic of bullying based around “anti-gay” sentiments. Hard facts reflecting trends in school incident or police reports have never, to our knowledge, been used in any school district to support this claim. Instead, DOS cites the badly-constructed and highly-biased internal “research” produced by the DOS-sponsoring group, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), called the National School Climate Survey. This research uses a biased survey instrument laced with emotionally-loaded terminology and collects responses via the Internet. Paid GLSEN staff members amass the data and publish the results. No independent verification exists, and the known volatility of surveys administered to youth as well as web-based research, is never taken into account. GLSEN inflames student emotions by citing the tragic suicides of several students in recent years as proof that traditional moral opinions stimulate violence.

Homosexuality advocacy groups like GLSEN are never called on to prove that the belief that homosexual acts are immoral causes bullying. The fact that a bully may disapprove of homosexuality does not prove that his or her bullying acts were caused by his beliefs or that serious, thoughtful religious convictions cause bullying.

3. DOS believes the only way to reduce bullying is for all students and teachers to affirm homosexuality and “gender change” and for none to be allowed to question it. GLSEN holds that schools cannot be “safe” as long as conservative views on the nature and morality of homosexuality are expressed or studied. The DOS/GLSEN calls for “tolerance” and “diversity” constitute empty rhetoric.

4. Embedded in all homosexuality-affirming activities and resources is the fallacious comparison of homosexuality to race. DOS and pro-homosexual programs in general propagate emotion-based, shallow claims and diminished critical thinking skills by implying or asserting there is only one acceptable viewpoint on this issue, by not encouraging fact-based assessment, and by censoring competing viewpoints.

The National Education Association’s monolithic support for same sex unions, “safe schools” for “GLBT” students, and its “GLBT” teacher member caucus, discredits its claims to professionalism, its commitment to sound pedagogy and diversity and its purported concern for the long-term well-being of students.

Thoughtful parents and school communities will reject the Day of Silence, all pro-homosexual programs and curricula, and hold NEA member teachers to a higher standard of non-partisanship and truthfulness, with child well-being as the number one consideration.

SB 1619, the comprehensive sex ed bill that is heavily promoted by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, is one more demonstration of the left’s fervor to mainstream homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder through legislation. Some may wonder just how ideas about homosexuality and “transgenderism” will work their way into sex ed curricula if this bill should pass. This dangerous goal will be accomplished through SB 1619’s requirement that “all course material and instruction shall be free from bias in accordance with the Illinois Human Rights Act.” There are significant problems with this language and its intent.

First, the Illinois Human Rights Act defines sexual orientation as “actual or perceived heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender-related identity, whether or not traditionally associated with the person’s designated sex at birth.” The tortured silliness and postmodern slipperiness of the phrase “gender-related identity, whether or not traditionally associated with the person’s designated sex at birth,” should be so obvious as to require no discussion. But the reasons for this silliness may be less obvious. For those untutored in the ways of concealing sexual deviancy, “gender-related identity” is a more publicly palatable term for Gender Identity Disorder and its attendant cross-dressing behavior. Proponents of “comprehensive” sex ed seek to disassociate cross-dressing and elective amputations of healthy body parts from the reality that these behaviors are manifestations of a disorder.

Second, the word “bias” never appears in the Illinois Human Rights Act.

Third, the term “bias” is not defined in SB 1619. You can bet your bottom dollar if proponents are compelled to define “bias,” they will define it in such a way as to result in the inclusion of resources that affirm subversive assumptions about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder.

Liberal ideologues use “bias” to refer to any moral propositions with which they disagree. But The American Heritage Dictionary defines “bias” as “a preference or inclination, esp. one that inhibits impartial judgment.” In its usage note it further explains that “Bias has generally been defined as “uninformed or unintentional inclination.” This definition reveals that informed, intentional, thoughtfully constructed opinions — even negative opinions — do not constitute bias. The belief that heterosexual acts are morally superior to homosexual acts does not constitute bias unless it is uninformed. Conversely, those who believe that heterosexual acts and homosexual acts are morally equivalent would be guilty of bias if they had not thought and read deeply on the foundational ontological and moral issues.

Fourth, the intent of including the reference to the Illinois Human Rights Act is to require that public schools treat homosexuality and cross-dressing as if they were ontologically and morally equivalent to heterosexuality, which, of course, requires prior assent to the propositions that they are ontologically and morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Treating homosexuality as if it’s ontologically and morally equivalent to heterosexuality is necessarily an act that embodies and expresses a moral belief. It is decidedly not a morally neutral act. Why should the left’s radical and unproven ontological and moral assumptions be codified in law?

And why should any Illinoisan allow the feckless notion that Gender Identity Disorder is not a disorder to be implicitly promoted in law and our schools. The accurate, apolitical term for the mental disorder in which an individual falsely believes that he or she is born in the wrong body is Gender Identity Disorder. This is the term used in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that is published by the American Psychiatric Association. Only liberal activists hell-bent on normalizing all manner of disordered thoughts, impulses, and behaviors would seek to use the euphemisms “gender identity,” “gender-related identity,” “gender expression,” or “transgender.” Those terms have no place in legal documents or school policies. Any legislator, school administrator, or school board member with an ounce of intelligence would vigorously oppose the inclusion of what are clearly political and rhetorically manipulative terms.

The presence of ambiguous, undefined, and euphemistic language in SB 1619 is yet more reason to reject this controversial bill that homosexual activists and their ideological accomplices are using to propagandize children.

It is unconscionable that conservative parents remain silent, acquiescent, fearful non-participants in our public schools while homosexuals and their ideological allies engage continuously in vociferous, vigorous, and bold action.

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is fewer than two weeks away. GLSEN’s Day of Silence, which began on college campuses and has now infiltrated middle schools, exploits anti-bullying sentiment to undermine the belief that homosexual acts are immoral. GLSEN shamelessly exploits teen suicide in order to create a climate of hysteria which they can then exploit to falsely impute culpability for teen suicide to conservative moral beliefs.

GLSEN’s end game is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs and the creation of a social and political climate in which it is impossible to express them. Their cultural vehicle of choice for this radical social experiment is public education. What a strategic coup for homosexualists: use our money to capture the hearts and minds of our children.

And we do virtually nothing. Our complacence makes us complicit in the damage done to our children and our culture. Moreover, we teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists. It’s time to resist, and there’s no easier way to resist than to call your children out of school on the Day of Silence.

Parents and Guardians: Call your children’s middle and high schools and ask if students and/or teachers will be permitted to refuse to speak during class on Friday, April 15. If your administration allows students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class, call your child out of school. Every student absence costs school districts money. When administrators refuse to listen to reason and when they allow the classroom to be exploited for political purposes, parents must take action. If they don’t, the politicization of the classroom and curricula will increase.

If your administrator tells you that they do not permit students or teachers to refuse to speak in class, ask him or her how that is communicated to faculty and students.

Here are just a few of the governmental efforts, including proposed legislation, designed to use public schools to normalize homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (aka “transgenderism”):

• Ten states now have “enumerated” anti-bullying laws, which specifically include homosexuality and gender confusion as protected classes.
• Comprehensive sex ed curricula portray homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality.
• California’s SB 48, if passed, will require schools to teach about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder positively while censoring dissenting resources.
• Federal Safe Schools Improvement Act denies funding to schools to combat drugs and violence unless they agree to address homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder.
• Federal Student Non-Discrimination Act includes homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder as protected classes. If passed, schools would be prohibited from treating the objective biological fact of a student’s sex as if it had objective status. It would render the act of making common sense distinctions between boys and girls illegal.
• “Dear Colleague” Letter, which unconstitutionally expands the control of government over student speech, was sent by the Department of Justice to all school boards.
• The Department of Justice created a video submission to Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign in which federal employees affirm unproven moral propositions about homosexuality to students
• President Obama held an anti-bullying conference at the White House to which he invited representatives from virtually every homosexuality-affirming organizations that seeks to use public education to normalize homosexuality.
• The White House created an anti-bullying website that has a special image link for only one group of students who experience bullying: LGBT students.

And here are the special events concocted by homosexual activist organizations that have wormed their way into public schools, partly because conservatives fail to oppose them with the same vigor that homosexuals promote them:

• No Name-Calling Week sponsored by GLSEN
• Ally Week sponsored by GLSEN
• Spirit Day sponsored by Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
• National Coming Out Day sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
• The Transgender Day of Remembrance sponsored by the HRC

The ACLU has issued this statement to students regarding silence in class:

“You DO have a right to participate in Day of Silence and other expressions of your opinion at a public school during non-instructional time: the breaks between classes, before and after the school day, lunchtime, and any other free times during your day. You do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak.”

It’s long past time that conservatives start acting and speaking as if we think our moral beliefs are objectively true. Conservative teachers need to create activities that require students to speak on the Day of Silence, and conservative parents need to teach their children by example to take a stand for truth.

Please call your children out of school if your administration permits students or teachers to refuse to speak on the Day of Silence. For further information, including parental instructions and a sample calling out letter, visit www.doswalkout.net.

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. – School officials at an Illinois high school have agreed to stop organizing and leading students in transcendental meditation exercises, which are rooted in the Buddhist religious practice, during class time and as part of the honors English curriculum. Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned officials at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake that conducting the transcendental meditation exercises, even if students were allowed to opt out of them, put the school at risk of violating the Establishment Clause’s prohibition against the government endorsing a religion. The Rutherford Institute intervened after being contacted by a parent concerned about students being directed to assume the lotus position, conduct meditative chants, and lie on their backs with their palms to the floor in order to “become one with the earth.”

“Although school officials can teach about religion, they cannot indoctrinate students in specific religious beliefs,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “This is a victory for religious freedom.”

Doug Mann, the father of a ninth grader at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, contacted The Rutherford Institute after his daughter was asked to participate in a transcendental meditation exercise in her ninth grade honors English class. The exercises were in connection with the study of the transcendental movement in literature. According to Mann, the teacher asked students to, among other things, assume the lotus position, conduct meditative chants, and lie on their backs with their palms to the floor in order to “become one with the earth.”

Although Mann voiced his objections to these practices as inconsistent with his family’s religious beliefs, he was told by the teacher that there was no problem because students were allowed the opportunity to opt out of the exercises. However, as Rutherford Institute attorneys pointed out in a letter to officials at Community School District 155, the federal courts have held that transcendental meditation is a religion and that school instruction in transcendental meditation violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

School officials were also informed that offering students an opt-out from a school-sponsored religious exercise does not absolve the school from having to abide by the First Amendment’s prohibition against government entities leading and organizing religious practices or endorsing a particular religion. Moreover, as Institute attorneys noted, in the context of student activities, there is an inherent coercion placed upon students to participate in school-sponsored religious activities due to peer pressure. Agreeing that such unconstitutional practices would no longer occur at the school, school officials indicated that they would also be relaying the Institute’s instructions on what schools can and cannot do in relation to teaching religion in the classroom with teachers in the English Department.

There’s no federal law against bullying or homophobia. So the Department of Education recently decided to invent one. On October 26, it sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to the nation’s school districts arguing that many forms of homophobia and bullying violate federal laws against sexual harassment and discrimination. But those laws only ban discrimination based on sex or race – not sexual orientation, or bullying in general. The letter from the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights twisted those laws, interpreting them so broadly as to cover not only bullying, but also a vast range of constitutionally protected speech, as well as conduct that the Supreme Court has held does not constitute harassment. In so doing, it menaced academic freedom and student privacy rights, and thumbed its nose at the federal courts.

The letter successfully left the false impression that federal law already bans bullying and anti-gay harassment. For example, a sympathetic news story reported that “the Department of Education issued guidance to all school officials in October 2010, reminding them that federal law requires schools to take action against bullying-including . . . sexual harassment of LGBT students.” The letter was part of a high-profile Obama Administration campaign against bullying, that recently culminated in “a high-visibility conference on bullying prevention March 10, with the president and first lady” and the introduction by Administration allies of “several LGBT-inclusive bills designed to address bullying of students.”

But in reality, there is no federal ban on bullying, and no federal statute prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination. Bills banning anti-gay discrimination, such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, have yet to pass Congress. Existing sexual harassment laws generally do not cover harassment aimed at gays based on their sexual orientation, as opposed to their gender – even if such harassment is sexual in nature. As the Supreme Court emphasized in its 1998 Oncale decision, “workplace harassment” is not illegal sexual harassment “merely because the words used have sexual content”; instead, victims “must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely tinged with offensive sexual connotations, but actually constituted discrimination ‘because of'” a victim’s “sex,” such that “members of one sex are” treated worse than “the other sex.” Thus, federal courts have usually dismissed sexual harassment lawsuits brought by gay employees over bullying and foul language, in cases like Higgins v. New Balance (1999).

Harassment is legally defined even more narrowly in schools than workplaces. In the workplace, harassment need only be severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile environment in order to be illegal. A single, severe physical act can occasionally be enough for a lawsuit.

But in the school context, harassment is defined more narrowly by the Supreme Court’s 1999 Davis decision: it must be “severe” and “pervasive”: to be illegal, sexual harassment must be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school since “schools are unlike the adult workplace” and “children may regularly interact in a manner that would be unacceptable among adults.” Moreover, the requirement of both severity and pervasiveness means that a lawsuit cannot be based solely on a “single instance” of “severe” peer harassment.

The Education Department’s letter, from Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali, flouts the Supreme Court’s harassment definition, claiming that “Harassment does not have to . . . involve repeated incidents” to be actionable, but rather need only be “severe, pervasive, or persistent” enough to detract from a student’s educational benefits or activities. The letter goes out of its way to emphasize that harassment includes speech, such as “graphic and written statements” and on the “Internet.”

The letter falsely implies that anti-gay harassment is generally discrimination based on sex. It cites as an example of illegal “gender-based harassment” a case in which “a gay high school student was called names (including anti-gay slurs and sexual comments) both to his face and on social networking sites.” This is exactly what most federal appeals courts have said does not constitute gender-based harassment. It is not clear whether this case is merely a hypothetical example, or – more disturbingly — a finding by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in an actual case. The letter says that “each of these hypothetical examples contains elements taken from actual cases.”

If it actually found a school district guilty of harassment over this, then the Education Department has flagrantly disregarded court rulings, not just about what harassment is, but about how officials are supposed to respond to harassment. In this example of anti-gay harassment, the Education Department says the school district is liable for harassment even though “the school responded to complaints from the student by reprimanding the perpetrators,” which stopped “harassment by those individuals,” because such discipline “did not, however, stop others from undertaking similar harassment of the student.”

That totally contradicts the Supreme Court’s Davis decision, which said school districts are not liable for harassment just because it continues, and are only liable if they are “deliberately indifferent” to harassment once they learn of it; they need not actually succeed in “purging schools of actionable peer harassment” or ensuring that all “students conform their conduct to” rules against harassment.

Even in the workplace, where institutions are liable for mere “negligence” regarding harassment, they are not liable for harassment that continues after steps “reasonably calculated” to prevent harassment – such as when employees stubbornly engage in harassment for which other employees have already been properly disciplined, as a federal appeals court ruled in Adler v. Wal-Mart(1998). Indeed, an institution may sometimes avoid liability even where there was no discipline at all, if it was unclear whether the accused employee was guilty, given due-process concerns.

Essentially, the Education Department has turned harassment law upside down, making schools more liable for harassment than employers, when the Supreme Court intended that they be less subject to liability. (The Education Department letter also suggests racial “sensitivity” training – never mind that this often backfires on institutions. In Fitzgerald v. Mountain States Tel & Tel. Co. (1995), where adverse employee reactions to diversity training spawned a discrimination lawsuit, the appeals court noted that “diversity training sessions generate conflict and emotion” and that “diversity training is perhaps a tyranny of virtue.”)

The letter also implies that it does not matter whether speech is “aimed at a specific target” in considering whether the speech is “harassment.” This stretches harassment law well beyond its existing reach even in the workplace, effectively prohibiting a vast range of speech that a listener overhears and objects to. Employees have tended to lose lawsuits alleging harassment over speech not aimed at them (the California Supreme Court’s 2006 Lyle decision being a classic example), although there are occasional exceptions to this rule. The courts reason that “the impact of such ‘second-hand’ harassment is obviously not as great as harassment directed toward” the complainant herself.

Banning such speech also raises serious First Amendment issues. Recently a federal appeals court cited the First Amendment in dismissing a racial harassment lawsuit by a university’s Hispanic employees against a white professor over his racially-charged anti-immigration messages. In its decision in Rodriguez v. Maricopa County Community College (2010), the court noted that the messages were not “directed at particular individuals” but rather aimed at “the college community” as a whole.

Even if the Education Department were merely trying to impose workplace rules on students, rather than going beyond that, that would still raise serious First Amendment issues. Courts have repeatedly struck down campus harassment codes modeled on workplace “hostile-environment” harassment rules, in cases like Dambrot v. Central Michigan University and DeJohn v. Temple University(2008). As the recent Rodriguez decision noted, “there is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the First Amendment’s free speech clause.”

The Education Department also calls on school districts to take “steps to reduce bullying in schools,” saying that “some student misconduct that falls under a school’s anti-bullying policy also may trigger responsibilities under one or more of the federal anti-discrimination laws enforced by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).” But if bullying is not motivated by gender or race, it cannot violate federal law. As a federal appeals court put it, “If . . . an employee’s environment, however unpleasant, is not due to her gender, she has not been the victim of” illegal discrimination.

According to the Daily Caller, “the leading advocate for the expanded” definition of harassment contained in the letter “is Kevin Jennings, who heads the Education Department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings founded the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network advocacy group, and raised at least $100,000 for the Obama campaign in 2008.” GLSEN falsely claims that the letter’s examples of harassment are supported by “current law” and it strongly supports its expansive interpretation of harassment law.

Contradicting the federal courts, the letter says that after harassment occurs, action must be aimed at students in general, not just the individual perpetrators. Following harassment, it says, “The school may need to provide training or other interventions not only for the perpetrators, but also for the larger school community.” Even if the school stops the harassment by disciplining the harassers, the letter claims it may still be liable if it does not take “systemic” and “comprehensive” actions like harassment training for the student body. Moreover, if bullying constitutes sexual harassment, the school may be liable even if it disciplines the bully, if it “failed to recognize” and “acknowledge that the bullying also constituted sexual harassment.

Federal courts have ruled to the contrary. For example, if an employer succeeds in stopping harassment, it will generally avoid liability, even if not all of the harassers – much less employees generally – are sent to harassment training, and even if it takes action under “general” misconduct rules, not a “separate, written” harassment policy. I have never previously encountered the bizarre mandates contained in the Education Department’s letter, even though I handled discrimination cases for years, including time spent working for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

If the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) succeeds in chilling free speech through its overreaching letter, its officials should be held personally liable for any resulting First Amendment violations. Indeed, it was once held liable for a similar First Amendment violation in Knights of the Ku Klux Klan v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board (1978). The Ku Klux Klan wanted to meet during non-school hours in an empty classroom, the way other community groups were allowed to do by the school board. But it was prevented from doing so by the school board under pressure from the Office for Civil Rights, which argued that the Klan’s presence would constitute racial discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the school board and OCR had violated the Klan’s First Amendment rights. (Liberal OCR bureaucrats have sometimes wrongly suggested that far less offensive speech than Klan activity can violate Title VI. In 1994, the Education Department’s Judith Winston refused to take a position on whether criticism of affirmative action constituted racial harassment when questioned by Stuart Taylor of the Legal Times, despite the fact that courts have held that criticism of affirmative action policies is not racial harassment, but rather is protected by the First Amendment and the anti-retaliation provisions of federal civil-rights laws).

The Education Department’s letter is a serious threat to free speech and academic freedom, and an egregious display of administrative overreaching that shows disregard for the federal courts and the legal limits on its own jurisdiction.

Parents who wonder how much more aggressive sex education can get should be concerned about guidelines which the United Nations is concocting, inspired by Alfred Kinsey. “Promoting sex education to the youngest of the young has drawn harsh criticism to a UN agency and its interpretation of age-appropriate education,” Terrence McKeegan, J. D. reported in an update for the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute on November 4, 2010.

“It is never too early to start talking to children about sexual matters,” the guidelines issued by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization proclaim.

Please bear in mind, the notion of a UN-inspired U.S. public school curriculum is not such a far-fetched one. The International Baccalaureate program is one such widely accepted course of study in American schools.

Although sex-ed is hardly as rarefied a course of study as the IB, taxpayers who crowd school board meetings to complain about their local school’s often expansive guidelines might be startled to see how the UN ups the ante. “Once highly respected for its independence and integrity, UNESCO now works in partnership with the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS), an educational arm of the controversial Kinsey Institute,” McKeegan writes. “Last September, a torrent of criticism greeted new UNESCO guidelines on sexuality education for promoting legal abortion and masturbation for children as young as five.”

Yet and still, the revisions themselves are hardly family-friendly, at least in the traditional sense of the phrase. “UNESCO removed some of the most explicit language in the revised guidelines, but retained an appendix with ‘guiding principles’ that includes a Kinsey-inspired sex education curriculum for children from birth to age five,” McKeegan notes. “This curriculum instructs parents to provide anatomically correct dolls for young children to play with, inform them of diverse sexual relationships, and to be supportive of masturbation.”

The UN’s connection to the work of controversial sex researcher Kinsey is fairly explicit. “UNESCO acknowledges a former director of SIECUS is one of the principle authors of its sexuality guidelines,” McKeegan observes. ” The guidelines are cited authoritatively as a model of age-appropriate sex education in a new UN report on education rights that was roundly denounced by UN members last week.”

The sage of Bloomington would probably feel vindicated. “Infamous sexologist Alfred Kinsey founded his institute at Indiana University,” McKeegan recounts. “Kinsey reached prominence in the 1940s and 1950s for his work in documenting human sexual behaviors.”

“Critics accused Kinsey of promoting pedophilia, pointing to his research that documented adults bringing children and infants to orgasm. The Kinsey Institute created SIECUS in 1964 as its educational arm. Its first director was Dr. Mary Calderone, the former medical director of Planned Parenthood. A recent government report revealed that SIECUS received $1.6 million dollars in federal funding between 2002 and 2009.” That would make them a beneficiary of government largesse during the Bush years.

“Table 34 in Kinsey’s book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, published in 1948, lists the number of orgasms of children, some as young as two, performed within a 24-hour period,” the Liberty Counsel notes. The Liberty Counsel is providing legal advice to a woman, using a pseudonym-Esther-who alleges she was one of those children.

“Kinsey had befriended Esther’s grandfather in college, who encouraged his son to join in on the experiment,” the Liberty Counsel alleges. “Esther says she witnessed both her father and grandfather personally receiving checks from Kinsey for their sexual acts.”

“She also found a checklist of her father’s that listed what he was doing to her, which would be given to Kinsey for research.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

Our public schools are under assault by activist ideologues both in administrations and on faculties. This activism is quickly invading even our elementary schools.

Teachers and administrators are exploiting legitimate anti-bullying sentiment to introduce homosexuality normalizing resources to all children using public money.

They are exploiting legitimate concerns for the less fortunate to promote controversial “critical race theory” and “critical pedagogy” by euphemistically calling it “teaching for social justice.”

They are exposing students to ever more profane and obscene resources by calling parents who object “book banners” and “censors,” all the while hoping no one will notice their astonishing censorship of conservative resources.

There are many things concerned taxpayers can and should do, including running for school boards. School board members are critical in the battle — and it is a battle — to rid public education of subversive curricula, presumptuous educators, and politicized professional development activities.

A prerequisite for running for school boards is to be willing to endure scorn and ridicule. We need courageous men and women who care more about truth and virtue than they do about their own comfort. We desperately need men and women who understand that “if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” IFI is pleading with those who feel the full weight of those words to consider running for school boards.

As I have said many times, activist ideologues both outside and inside public schools know that it’s easier to capture the hearts and minds of 16-year-olds than 26-year-olds and easier still to capture the hearts and minds of 6-year-olds.

If courageous, wise men and women do not step up to help restore integrity to public education, we bequeath a legacy of tragic ignorance and cultural oppression to our children. Whether you have children or not, whether you have school-age children or not, you should care about public education, because the children in school today, will very shortly be our culture-makers.

Far too many feckless, partisan administrators and teachers have been allowed to run our schools with almost complete autonomy because of the ignorance, passivity, and cowardice of community members. Please prayerfully consider standing for truth by running for your local school board.

For all parents who want their children to attend a Christian college, take note of this follow-up to my article two weeks ago about a small Lutheran college in Minnesota. Pay attention because what is taking place at Gustavus Adolphus College is taking place at many colleges that claim to have a Christian heritage.

Several weeks ago I wrote about the obscene and sophomoric freshmen orientation presentation put on by upperclassmen at a small Lutheran college in Minnesota. The Oct. 15 issue of the student newspaper, The Gustavian Weekly, further illuminates how far from its “Lutheran heritage” Gustavus has wandered.

The first story concerns a recent dust-up about the “rock,” a large boulder on campus that students or student groups paint for all sorts of events. Recently, “Queers & Allies,” the college LGBT club, painted it with rainbow colors, following which some students painted it over with the Bible reference “Romans 1: 27,” which says, “and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Gustavus Adolphus president, Jack Ohle, described the painting-over incident as “‘openly disrespect[ing] others by painting over the rock that had been painted this week to express support for those celebrating ‘Coming Out Week.'”

Ohle evidently believes that painting over the rock with a verse from Scripture–the Scripture that Martin Luther deeply revered–constitutes a far graver moral offense than does celebrating homosexuality. One wonders if Ohle finds the celebration of homosexuality problematic in any way at all.

The Gustavus Student Senate went even further in their efforts to promote “tolerance” through rhetorical trickery, saying that they “denounce the act of hate that was performed against GLBT people and Q&A. We maintain that hate, in any form, has no place in our community.'” The fact that they view painting over a rock with a Bible verse as an “act of hate” exposes the truth about which Christians are being deceived.

“Queers” and their allies conceal that they believe the expression of orthodox Christian beliefs about homosexual acts is hateful. Homosexual activists believe that traditional and widely held theological understandings about homosexuality constitute hatred and cause both bullying and teen suicide. The only solution, therefore, becomes either the eradication of traditional theological beliefs or the silencing of their expression through both name-calling and censorship.

Homosexual activists seek to eradicate tradition Christian beliefs by getting homosexuality affirming resources into public schools via curricula, especially anti-bullying resources. They seek to silence Christians by calling them haters, homophobes, and bigots. And they also seek to silence them through legal means like “enumerated” anti-bullying policies; anti-discrimination laws that include the terms “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and “gender expression”; and through “hate crimes” legislation.

Gustavus alumnus (and in the service of full disclosure, my daughter), Easten Niphakis, sent this letter to editor of The Gustavian Weekly:

As a relatively recent Gustavus graduate I am not unaware of the sexually permissive, left-leaning, increasingly secularized campus culture that students encounter despite the college’s purported mission to be a “community where a mature understanding of the Christian faith and lives of service are nurtured…” While at Gustavus I learned of professors who undermined or even disparaged orthodox Christian beliefs, and I attended chapel services stripped of any reference to Christ or traditional biblical teaching. And yet, when I read about the sexually explicit freshmen orientation program and watched a video excerpt of it, I was shocked.

While many assume that most college students will be sexually active and therefore seek to minimize the consequences of such behavior by educating about STI prevention and birth control, Gustavus encourages not only sexual promiscuity but sexual deviance in the form of sadomasochism, pornography, and masturbation.

Institutions of higher learning were created to educate and mold the leaders of the future by teaching students academic content and holding them to high standards of character and integrity. Gustavus has not set the bar high for incoming freshmen but has lowered it to such a degree that it seems no topic is too base or vulgar to be used as fodder for comical skits. It seems that Gustavus considers its students to be incapable of self-control or anything other than blind obedience to animalistic desires and instincts.

If Gustavus has chosen to abandon its Christian heritage and mimic the debauched practices of secular colleges and universities in order to be “progressive,” so be it. But to maintain a façade of Christian commitment (especially to older, more conservative donors and naïve, unsuspecting parents) while promoting hedonism and unchecked sexual promiscuity is unconscionable.

Perhaps Gustavus should show this video of their freshmen orientation program at their next alumni, donor, or prospective student meeting to demonstrate how they are educating incoming students about the complicated sex life of a college coed.

My hope and prayer is that many other alumni will write to the paper, the administration, and the board of trustees to express opposition to Gustavus’ departure from its Lutheran heritage. Unless that happens, Gustavus will remain a place hostile to Scripture. It’s unlikely that students who hold theologically orthodox views will find them affirmed in any context at Gustavus.

For example, The Gustavian Weekly also has an article about the theater department’s upcoming radical production of Romeo and Juliet in which the star-crossed lovers are two homosexual men.

It’s not just on the topic of homosexuality, however, that Gustavus has gone awry. There’s another article in The Gustavian that reveals the sacrilegious ways in which the Gustavus Chapel has been appropriated to affirm ideas and practices from Eastern mystical traditions, which Luther would view as false religions. Here’s a description of what is deceptively called “Sacred Space”:

“It’s just a place where we offer [activities for] people to explore their spirituality, whether it be Buddhism, Christianity or even if you’re just searching,” Chaplain Rachel Larson said. Sacred Space is a monthly service offered in Alumni Hall, usually on a Sunday…. labyrinth, a big piece of canvas that one can walk upon in meditation…. There is a whole array of things offered at Sacred Space, including mats where you can do yoga….

Something that Larson recommends everyone take advantage of is Reiki, which is a Japanese word meaning “universal life force.” It is a holistic, light touch, energy-based healing art that balances the normal flow of energy throughout the body. It can enhance and accelerate the body’s innate healing abilities and heals on all levels-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. “Everyone who comes almost always takes advantage of the Reiki practitioners,” Larson said.

Despite their claims to the contrary, Gustavus is not firmly rooted in its “Lutheran heritage.” Gustavus Adolphus has abandoned any substantive connection to their Christian heritage and as a result a climate has developed in which false religions, premarital sex, and homosexuality flourish.

Parents, if you want your child to have a Christian education, carefully research the colleges and universities that your children are considering. And remember that’s it’s not just what ideas and experiences your children are exposed to that matter, but what ideas and experiences your children are not exposed to in college that matter as well.

For more information about college and university life as well as particular colleges, check out this month’s issue of First Things.

Several weeks ago, libraries across the country sanctimoniously participated in the ironic “educational” campaign: Banned Books Week, which should be called Disinformation Week.

The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association (ALA), which sponsors Banned Books Week, has a Library Bill of Rights that states the following:

Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

In a 1995 interview with Beverly Goldberg, the highly respected Judith F. Krug, decades-long president of theALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, had this to say about the importance of intellectual diversity in library book collections:

We have to serve the information needs of all the community and for so long “the community” that we served was the visible community…. And so, if we didn’t see those people, then we didn’t have to include them in our service arena. The truth is, we do have to.

…

We never served the gay community. Now, we didn’t serve the gay community because there weren’t materials to serve them. You can’t buy materials if they’re not there. But part of our responsibility is to identify what we need and then to begin to ask for it. Another thing we have to be real careful about is that even though the materials that come out initially aren’t wonderful, it’s still incumbent upon us to have that voice represented in the collection. This was exactly what happened in the early days of the women’s movement, and as the black community became more visible and began to demand more materials that fulfilled their particular information needs. We can’t sit back and say, “Well, they’re not the high-quality materials I’m used to buying.” They’re probably not, but if they are the only thing available, then I believe we have to get them into the library. [emphasis added]

According to Krug, intellectual diversity is of such paramount importance that it trumps even quality of material. And if resources are scarce, Krug believes it is the obligation of librarians to ask for them.

In light of Krug’s comments, consider the topic on which libraries have virtually no books. Community and public high school libraries carry dozens of books, both fiction and non-fiction, on the topic of homosexuality and “transgenderism,” almost every one of which espouses or embodies liberal assumptions about the nature and morality of homosexuality. There can be found nary a one that espouses or embodies conservative assumptions about homosexuality.

If questioned about this untenable disparity, librarians will likely say what Deerfield High School’s head librarian, Lucy Kempton, said to me, which is that libraries adhere to “Collection Development Policies” when deciding what books to purchase. Collection Development Policies require that a book be positively reviewed by at least two “professionally recognized” journals. Strangely, none of the “professionally recognized” journals had positively reviewed even a single book by a conservative author on the topic of homosexuality. This raises the obvious question whether the professionally recognized journals are staffed by professionals who hold diverse views and who are committed to intellectual freedom and impartiality.

And in light of Krug’s comments, it raises the question, why are book purchases determined by Collection Development Policies. Krug stated that it is the obligation of librarians to identify gaps in their book collections and request materials to fill in those gaps. Further, if the only materials available on a certain topic are “not high-quality,” librarians still need to “get them into the library.”

I wonder if Krug’s philosophical heirs have identified the dearth of materials in both fiction and non-fiction on the topic of the “ex-gay” or “post-gay” phenomenon. And I wonder if they’re requesting such materials.

I wonder if they’re asking for materials pertaining to the serious intellectual challenges to the ontological, moral, and political claims of homosexuals and their ideological allies.

I wonder if they’re requesting materials pertaining to the negative impact of legalized same-sex “marriage” on the culture.

I wonder if Krug’s disciples are requesting materials that depict the pain of children who are created to be fatherless or motherless.

It is long past time that taxpayers demand that the hypocritical ALAfulfill its own commitments and the ideals of Judith Krug when it comes to materials that reflect conservative views of homosexuality. Intellectual diversity should trump Collection Development Policies. If ALAmembers spent less time at their annual conferences endorsing same-sex marriage, they might have more time to examine critically their own de facto censorship practices.

Taxpayers can request that libraries start filling the holes in their book collections by ordering the following books, and if the library staff brings up Collection Development Policies, taxpayers should quote Judith Krug and theALA’s Library Bill of Rights above:

• Out from Under by Dawn Stefanowicz
• Called Out by Janet Boynes
• Divorcing Marriage edited by Daniel Cere and Douglas Farrow
• The Gay Gospel by Joe Dallas
• The Bible and Homosexual Practice by Robert A.J. Gagnon
• Light in the Closet by Arthur Goldberg
• Ex-Gays?: A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse
• The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian
• Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth by Jeffrey Satinover, M.D.
• Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage by Peter Sprigg
• Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting by Glenn T. Stanton and Dr. Bill Maier
• The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today by Alan Sears and Craig Osten
• Same-Sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk by Matthew D. Staver
• Homosexuality and American Public Life edited by Christopher Wolfe
• Same-Sex Matters: The Challenge of Homosexuality edited by Christopher Wolfe

For more on Banned Books Week or Collection Development Policies click here and here.

On Friday, October 15, 2010, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the mandatory Illinois”Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act” passes constitutional muster.

Circuit Court Judges Kenneth F. Ripple and Daniel A. Manion overturned U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman’s previous judgment that Section I of the act violated both the Establishment and Due Process clauses of the Constitution.

In 2007, Section I of the decades old “Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act” was amended to make the moment of silent reflection mandatory in public schools. This moment of silence, which was as brief as seven seconds in some schools, was intended to be “an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.”

But the thought of public schools providing even seven-seconds during which students could pray was too much for inveterate atheist Rob Sherman who, through his daughter, sued State Superintendent of Education, Christopher Koch, and Township High School District 214, alleging that Section I of the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act violated the Constitution.

Judge Gettleman granted a summary judgment in favor of the Shermans, and On Feb. 20, 2009, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan appealed this ruling to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, stating that “laws requiring a moment of silence have been found constitutional in other states,” and that “the legislature debated this issue and, by an overwhelming majority, voted to enact this law (the Senate voted to enact this law by a vote of 58-1 and the House by a vote of 86-26).”

The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed an amicus curiae (i.e. “friend of the court”) brief, in this case on behalf of IFI. We would like to thank the ADF for their excellent work, and congratulate them and Attorney General Lisa Madigan on this victory.

The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) supported the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act, believing the legislation constitutes an affirmative step toward recognizing religious freedom in the public square which is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

And we are thankful for the wise decision of Judges Ripple and Manion which stands in stark contrast to some deeply troubling recent court decisions that exposed both the judicial activism and poor constitutional thinking that plague our courts.

Read more:

ADF’s Press Release on this victory

Lisa Madigan Appeals Moment of Silence Ruling by IFI’s Laurie Higgins