The Court is Mother, The Court is Father...
Today, the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled, essentially, that no parent has a fundamental right to approve or manage what their children are taught.
As reported by CNS News, the case revolved around a sex survey given to 1st, 3rd and 5th grade children that was, to say the least, a little in poor taste. Asking a 6 year old about whether they touch themselves or think about sex all the time generally falls outside the bounds of education I think.
The parents basically argued that they should be able to approve or disapprove such serious topics, especially for such young children. The Orwellian court ruled the following:
"There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children...Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the panel, said "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."
I'll let that sink in for a moment. That's a federal appeals court judge, the guy who's supposed to interpret the Constitution. So we have a privacy right to use condoms and abort babies according to some emanation of a penumbra, but we have no right to decide how to raise our own children? Guess that penumbra didn't emanate enough. I suppose Hilly is right, it does take a village, at least according to ole' Reinhardt and company.
I'm even having difficulty absorbing that. That I, as a parent, don't have the right to decide how my child is raised. Where, exactly in the Constitution was the federal government given that power? I'm checking, but I can't find it.
Judicial activism, long a tool of the left, has recently been twisted by the left in the regular media outlets to apply to conservative judges who don't legislate from the bench, but who try to counter such previous attempts. Expect this court ruling to get little air play on the big Three, but know this, if you ever doubted leftist judges will do or say whatever they feel like to restrict your rights as they deem best for your simpleton mind, you should doubt no more. This is an outrage, nothing less and the men and women of the courts who've taken this view need to be off the courts before they cause even further damage.
Never did I believe Judicial tyranny would become so rampant or so abhorrent, to use the word others have attached to this, but I believe it now and am more dedicated than ever to see that such judges and those who appoint them do not come to power. This is a sad day.
Today, the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled, essentially, that no parent has a fundamental right to approve or manage what their children are taught.
As reported by CNS News, the case revolved around a sex survey given to 1st, 3rd and 5th grade children that was, to say the least, a little in poor taste. Asking a 6 year old about whether they touch themselves or think about sex all the time generally falls outside the bounds of education I think.
The parents basically argued that they should be able to approve or disapprove such serious topics, especially for such young children. The Orwellian court ruled the following:
"There is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children...Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
Judge Stephen Reinhardt, writing for the panel, said "no such specific right can be found in the deep roots of the nation's history and tradition or implied in the concept of ordered liberty."
I'll let that sink in for a moment. That's a federal appeals court judge, the guy who's supposed to interpret the Constitution. So we have a privacy right to use condoms and abort babies according to some emanation of a penumbra, but we have no right to decide how to raise our own children? Guess that penumbra didn't emanate enough. I suppose Hilly is right, it does take a village, at least according to ole' Reinhardt and company.
I'm even having difficulty absorbing that. That I, as a parent, don't have the right to decide how my child is raised. Where, exactly in the Constitution was the federal government given that power? I'm checking, but I can't find it.
Judicial activism, long a tool of the left, has recently been twisted by the left in the regular media outlets to apply to conservative judges who don't legislate from the bench, but who try to counter such previous attempts. Expect this court ruling to get little air play on the big Three, but know this, if you ever doubted leftist judges will do or say whatever they feel like to restrict your rights as they deem best for your simpleton mind, you should doubt no more. This is an outrage, nothing less and the men and women of the courts who've taken this view need to be off the courts before they cause even further damage.
Never did I believe Judicial tyranny would become so rampant or so abhorrent, to use the word others have attached to this, but I believe it now and am more dedicated than ever to see that such judges and those who appoint them do not come to power. This is a sad day.
posted by Rob Beck | 3:07 PM
3 Comments:
I don't know if I agree with this analysis. Allowing every parent to micromanage a school's operations would be extremely disruptive; if a parent next decides to demand that the school library not check out any of a list of books to their child, shall the school be required to adhere to that list?
The operative sentence here is:
"Parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students."
Public school districts have been working to afford more choice within their systems, through magnet programs and charter schools, and private alternatives exist as well. Once you've enrolled your child in a school -- any school, tax-funded or not -- you don't suddenly gain the right to start rewriting the curriculum. There's a process for doing these things.
I think you're taking it to the opposite extreme, though. You're basically saying "Well, we can't just let parents dictate the whole thing, there would be chaos!" Which is true. You can't have a parent-driven curriculum. That's what we pay the teachers for.
What I think you missed in my point, was that it shouldn't go the other way either. If you cut parents out entirely and say the state knows how best to teach the children and if parents object, that's tough, is wrong. It's Orwellian and I don't agree with it. Having a six year old fill out a sex survey in a SCHOOL is a touch much, wouldn't you agree? The goal of schools is to TEACH, not indoctrinate in someone's pet philosophy on sex or politics or whatever else.
Teach them the skills they need in the basics, educate them in the classics, educate them in history, teach them how the political process works. That's fine. Telling them liberal = good, conservative or libertarian = bad, God doesn't exist and you should worship the state, God does exist and you should worship God, none of that is right. That's the purview of the parents. And if you are a parent, which I don't know, I'd hope you would see that.
I agree entirely -- it's just that I don't read the sentence above as saying that the state has the right to dictate that children be taught x. I read it as saying that, having enrolled their child in a school, the parents then don't then get the right to start dictating what the school can or can't teach their children. That's not the same as cutting the parents out of the process.
Parents have the right to remove their child from a school or a system and send them elsewhere, and they have the right to lobby administrators or school boards or their PT(S)A for changes they think should be enacted -- such as giving students or parents the option of sitting out particular subjects. They don't have a Constitutional right to special treatment "just because" any more than I have the Constitutional right to demand that a restaurant substitute onion rings for my baked potato. I can negotiate, I can settle, or I can take my business elsewhere.
When it comes to a case questioning the right of the state to compel primary education, I'll be right there with you. That's really what this is about, isn't it? In this case, however, I have to side with the school.
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