Reading the Bible in Reading Time

I’ll send an email to AU and see what they know about it.

nothing on snopes looks like a match, but I’d assume it’s an urban legend

Judging from the blogpost I’m going to link below, apparently there was a contemporaneous story of some sort in a Philadelphia paper (of all things). The link to the paper’s website is dead, apparently because the paper doesn’t archive back to 2007, but there is quoted text in the blogpost. I must say, however, that the quoted text looks a lot like it was probably from a Thomas More press release . . .

http://jacklewis.net/weblog/archives/2007/07/why_i_homeschoo_4.php

More dubiousness in the source (at least the transmitting source “nolo” linked to):

The school was Michigan Elementary School District No. 159, located right outside Chicago, Ill.

Say what? I used to drive from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Chicago. You have to go through another state – Indiana – to get there!

Can you imagine someone daft enough to think that reading the Bible during free reading time is unconstitutional? Why would they allow someone like that to be a principal or teacher, let alone substitute?

I think “let alone” does not mean what you think it means. Unless you seriously believe that substitute teachers – lowest of the low in institutional esteem – should be held to higher standards than principals or teachers.

Sheesh.

Posted by Danny Carlton at July 26, 2007 6:52 AM

Provider of the quotes above. How good a source? You decide.

I worked as a temp copy-editor for Philadelphia’s Catholic newspaper. If my experience there is any indication, you CANNOT regard Catholic news organizations as reliable sources of information. The managing editor actually told me in no uncertain terms when I protested the inclusion of certain details on a piece on Terry Schiavo that the paper’s job was to fight the good fight against all that horrible secular news out there. Reliable sourcing was not high on her agenda.

I imagine that there are at least a handful of true cases of this. Why would we expect constitutional law and real-world school practice to line up perfectly? How many public school teachers are there? More than 100,000? That’s a lot of people who have to get this question right every day.

I’ve googled a little bit and found references to an old case involving Joshua Burton. See
http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=H-AmRel&month=9509&week=c&msg=bRANdfgzTn1ntvllUklrTQ&user=&pw=

Is there some reason to think that the Thomas More Law Center wasn’t involved in the Haymon case? Not any I can see. (What actually happened at school is a different question.)

District 159 is right outside of Chicago but it is Mokena not Michigan. Probably another case of overly aggressive use of a spell checker.

The story absolutely reeks of urban legend. It’s nothing but layers of unsourced allegations (a dozen academics in the age of the Internet can’t find 1 reliable citation), contradictory details (was the kid sent home or just told to put the Bible away? was there a law suit or not?), anecdotal evidence (“this one time, at band camp…”), hearsay (my cousin’s kid’s school mate’s brother knew a girl who said she had a friend who once had this happen to her niece) , hyperbole (sent home from school for reading) and shifting time frames (the story has been passed down for at least a decade). And then there’s the audience bias: religious home school parents telling each other emotionally gratifying bogey man tales (were they around a campfire?) about the evils of secular schooling and how the oppress the righteous few who just want to read the Bible. I call Bullshit.

Philadelphia’s evening paper, the Bulletin, has been defunct for a couple of decades, but there’s the website right there

Right, the Bulletin went out of business in I think 1982. However, a few years ago, an investor bought the rights to the name and started publishing a new paper under the old name.

The current paper is given away for free and has a profoundly conservative bent — e.g. recent front page above-the-fold article on Obama’s citizenship.

“Can you imagine someone daft enough to think that reading the Bible during free reading time is unconstitutional? Why would they allow someone like that to be a principal or teacher, let alone substitute?”

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the main story/rumor/potential legend, but I do know that this is a horrible way of analyzing it.

There was a vice principal who thought that the zero tolerance rules on drugs made it ok to strip search a girl over contraband Advil. And the school board took it to the Supreme Court. cite

Edward L. White III is, according to my directory of the Michigan Bar, a real attorney.

I’m inclined to suspect tht this particular incident happened, and I don’t think it’s an open-and-shut case that students are entitled to read the Bible in reading class, as opposed to, say, at lunch. It would depend on what religious-neutral limitations the school had on what could be read in the class.

It’s possible to read any one of these stories “charitably” and thus come up with an explanation for what happens that has everybody acting more or less “reasonably” from their own point of view. What’s not possible is for all of these charitable readings to describe the same event. Therefore, someone is not reporting accurately. The most likely explanation is a willingness to make their reporting serve an agenda whether or not the facts can be made to support their agenda; each reported version, then, supports a different agenda. There is no reason to think that in this case even a single one of the reported facts is true.

I suppose I agree with Bianca, and don’t believe that all of these stories describe the same event. The most likely explanation for the differences in the stories is that the stories actually involve different events. Such as the case of Joshua Burton, which I mentioned above. He testified before Congress about his case. And the case of Bryce Fisher in South Bend, Indiana. Bryce and his family were represented by the Becket Fund, a prominent public interest law firm which litigates religious liberty cases.

Colin, why would it be surprising that some people misapprehend the law, and that others refuse to follow it? Do you ordinarily blame the victims of state wrongdoing? If so, you aren’t the only one. Dirty Davey is right there with you.

Quite a group of commenters here. This never happens, and to the extent it does it’s the fault of the victims. A mixture of ignorance and bigotry, all the way down.

Googling Joshua Burton, I can’t come up with a single primary source: just a few Christianist sites expressing shock. However, Thomas is quite right that Joshua testified before Congress – specifically, a Congressional Subcommittee on the Constitution at Tampa on 23 June 1995, part of five days of hearings on “Religious Liberty and the Bill of Rights”. Reference: the Library of Congress website, http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?sel=DOC&&item=&r_n=hr543.105&&&sid=cp105wMGKl&&refer=&&&db_id=cp105&&hd_count=&.

Unfortunately, the Library of Congress doesn’t give any details of his case. There is a plausible-looking transcript of his father’s testimony at http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/burtonts.htm. Without some idea of the school’s version of events, this doesn’t have much evidential value; but I’m prepared to accept that something happened here – that this particular story is not purely an urban myth. But I don’t accept Thomas’s wider assertion that “The most likely explanation for the differences in the stories is that the stories actually involve different events”. The lack of primary sources, and the way they echo time-worn tropes about pious children defying their blasphemous elders, shriek “urban myth” to me.

And how does Thomas manage to conclude that what went on in any case was “state wrongdoing”, as opposed to individual teachers getting it wrong? Browsing that Library of Congress page (all about a proposed “Religious Freedom Amendment” to the US Constitution – which never got passed, thank God) offers some perspective: stories of tearful Christian children are matched by tales of other kids who resist the call to prayer and are branded satanists or “dirty Jews”. Shall we put that down as “church wrongdoing”?

thomas is surely right; after all, the most likely explanation for the various forms of the blood libel is simply that the jews ate christian children quite frequently.

with all that throat-cutting and blood-draining going on all over europe, it’s no wonder that names and details get confused.

Correction: it was actually in July 1995, early in Clinton’s second term.

Very interesting (and amusing) discussion. Thanks in particular for the link the Clinton memo, which I’d never seen.

Mrs Tilton–Yes, I expect most of these issues are resolved precisely as you say. And some aren’t–given a large enough group, I’m sure it’s not surprising that we’ll find principals who don’t know the law, and school boards, and, in some cases, even lawyers.

I’ve given you some references to legal proceedings. I haven’t any interest in running a westlaw search on this topic.

Which part of the story of “Little Leslie Haymon” do you find implausible? The underlying assertions? Or the report of the counsel involved, which is that they were asked to write a letter making a complaint, and that they received a satisfactory response from the school district? I find the second part of it overwhelmingly likely, in part because if a lawyer were to publish a description like this and it weren’t true, the lawyer could be disbarred. As for the underlying complaint? Well, I don’t know much of anything about it at all. I wouldn’t be shocked if it were true, for the reasons given above. And yet it’s possible that this child simply made a story up–but it’s no more or less likely in this case, it seems to me, than in any other.

Thomas @34,

I should have been clearer. I don’t find the asserted facts themselves implausible. Indeed, as you and I agree, it’s probable that things more or less like this have happened, even if none to date seems to have resulted in any especially big tsuris.

The reason I find the Little Leslie story, as one concrete instance of that sort of thing, implausible is the references to back it up. There is nothing from outside the vacuum jar of rightwing paranoia (or, if you prefer, from outside the community of concerned Christian parents and the advocacy groups that support their cause).

But you’re right, if a Thomas More Center lawyer ever, impossibile dictu, published a website article that was in any way economical with the truth, why, they’d be disbarred straightaway. We’ll all remember those Thomas More lawyers disbarred in the wake of Kitzmiller; I’m sure that put the fear of God into their former colleagues.

Harry, I’m afraid I don’t understand what relevance press reports have. I’ve provided a link to a case reported in the Washington Post. (I hope you can see it–I see that it says my comment 34 is awaiting moderation.) As it happens, for various reasons I’m not sure that’s the strongest case, but because it was reported, apparently it’s something you’d give more credence to than, say, the reports of participants in various disputes resolved without litigation.

As I understand it, these cases typically start with a complaining student, who retains free counsel from a public interest law firm. The counsel writes a letter demanding that the protested act not continue (e.g., you told Johnny he can’t read his bible during lunch, but your general policy allows students to read what they’d like during lunch, and the constitution and federal law prohibit you from barring him from reading the bible in those circumstances, so don’t do it, and confirm to us in writing that you won’t). If that leads to a resolution–which it should, in the ordinary case–then it’s the sort of thing that the lawyer involved might trumpet without anyone in the press reporting it. Only in cases in which the demand letter doesn’t lead to a resolution is there a lawsuit initiated, and only in those cases would I expect there to be press reports. (Unless you think that press releases from the Becket Fund and the Thomas More Law Center are ordinarily picked up by the Chicago Tribune. Or perhaps they pick them up, but only when they refer to schools near Joliet.)

As I said above, I’m surprised by the skepticism. My understanding is that in many places in the American south (Alabama, Texas, Mississippi) there are routine violations of the establishment clause. There aren’t many disputes, because there aren’t many dissenters, and there’s not much press probably for a variety of reasons, at least until a lawsuit. Does anyone find that hard to believe? If the ACLU puts out a press release saying that they’ve settled a dispute with some school district in Louisiana, am I going to be the only one who believes it?

Mrs Tilton–there’s a difference between losing a lawsuit and falsely describing a supposed relationship with a client and the resolution of a dispute with another party. Were I a litigator I imagine I might lose on occasion, without being unethical for taking up a losing cause. I can’t imagine lying about this sort of thing, but when I try I can’t imagine getting away with it. For the reasons I’ve given above I don’t see why we’d expect press reports in the Haymon case. But, given the public statements by the Thomas More Law Center, why hasn’t the school district published a statement refuting or disputing the allegations that they resolved the situation by sending a letter? (Perhaps we should resolve this by contacting the superintendent. His email’s available on the web.)

bianca, I confess I don’t understand your position. Is it that Burton’s father is lying? That he doesn’t know what it means to to tell the truth? What do you find suspect in Mr. Burton’s motives? I assume he had a dispute with his son’s school about his son’s constitutional rights, and he presented the facts as he understood them and in the light most favorable to the assertion of his son’s rights. Whether his son was causing a disruption by reading the bible is relevant, in a limited way, to the question of whether he had a right to read it. If Mr. Burton didn’t make that point, he’d be saying, the school may or may not have violated my son’s rights. Which really isn’t a strong position to take, particularly if he believed that, based on the facts as he knew them, the school did violate his son’s rights. Are you surprised that legal testimony focuses on the legally relevant points? And what about those who repeated his story (presumably including me, since I referenced his name though I don’t know much at all of the story)? What makes them–me–suspect? It can’t be that we get the facts wrong. That happens all the time. Different incidents are conflated and confused. Someone talks about the Burton kid, but moves him to a school near Joliet, confusing him with Haymon. And all sorts of other mistakes occur. Is that evidence that these people don’t know what it means to tell a story accurately? Really? I remember in law school being surprised at the number of my very smart classmates who got cases mixed up, couldn’t keep the facts straight one to the next. Was that a moral failing? Or is that different, because you can imagine yourself doing that, but can’t imagine yourself repeating one of these awful stories about poor Christian kids who couldn’t read the bible at school?

Thomas,
Sorry, I see I’ve over-compressed some things in an attempt at brevity. A couple of clarifications:
1) Yes, I do think it’s possible that the boy’s father was lying. Are you saying the (civil) law takes the position that participants in a court case are engaged in the selfless pursuit of the truth? That he was lying is not the only explanation for why he testified that he knew what the other children were thinking. It’s also possible he honestly believed he knew what the other children were thinking — which he could not possibly have known (though perhaps in some cultures he would believe he could?). I don’t know how the law sees that, but I personally question the understanding of someone who truly believes he can see into the hearts of other people. I don’t think I said that was a “moral” failing, but if that part of the story came from his own head, rather than the facts, it isn’t surprising if it fits a pattern. (Which does not mean the rest of the story might not still be true.)
2) Obviously, somebody is either lying or sloppy here. The boy’s father testified that the boy was reading aloud in the playground and that two students heard him speaking and objected. The other statement says the boy was reading silently in class. (Is it not considered “lying” if a settlement requires the parties to a dispute to publicly support a false version of the facts, which I suppose may have happened here? Is it not considered “lying” if a press outlet settles upon its own false versions for what it feels to be virtuous reasons?)
3) It’s interesting that the “Bulletin” story also says the boy involved got into trouble after a student objected — but in this case, the objection sounds kind of different. Here the child objecting is a busybody who shouldn’t have been bothering about what other kids read, where in the other case they did or said something or other in response to actual speech. And in the “Bulletin” story, the nature of “reading time” is explicitly defined as “silent reading time.”
4) The Thomas More story doesn’t give those details. Were they added by the writer for the Bulletin, or his source, in order to preempt readers’ objections? That’s what I mean by “embellishments.” These are the kinds of embellishments you hear in versions of these kinds of stories that are spread by gossip. (The TM version of the story, on the contrary, is bloodless and unobjectionable, and could be met with sympathy by members of any faith.)
5) As a lawyer, you probably are told stories all the time as part of your work and you’ve probably come to think of them a certain way. Most likely they come across differently when they are told to you over coffee, in all their lurid and implausible detail, for no apparent reason that you can discern, except to emphasize how bad “they” are (whoever they may be) and how careful you ought to be.

It did not occur to me that Harry might be interested in the case from a legal perspective, rather than trying to check out rumors people had been telling him. If so, I misread him, and I hope this digression has been at least been interesting for others.

bianca–I agree that he could be lying. He could also be telling the truth. There’s nothing about his story that makes it fall into one of those categories, except the truth or falsity of it. I don’t think that drawing inferences about other people’s motivations is inherently dishonest, though on your view it looks like it must always be. The law must make allowances for that sort of thing, since juries are required to do what the father in this case did.

I don’t know what the statements say, and I’m not interested in reading them. I certainly don’t have any interest in doing an analysis of the merits of the case.

I hear stories all the time, but most of them are nothing like this. I do think that litigators typically explain doctrine to clients before the record is too well developed, and for that reason stories in litigation typically hit the points of the legal doctrine. The details you find implausible may be necessary. Which isn’t to say they aren’t true. Some details are remembering all the brands of brade pads you used 40 years ago, needed to make sure the one last solvent defendant is the one you remember, and others are the things that happened to you last week at school, needed to make out a case so you can go back to reading your bible during reading time at school.