As Neal McCluskey explored yesterday, education involves “developing the minds—and for many, the souls— of human beings.” This basic truth has resulted in education being a common battleground since the early days of state involvement. Not surprisingly, most of these battles have been around religion, which is a primary way morals and values are taught and upheld. Many early public schools were at least loosely Protestant—including prayer and Bible reading as part of the school day—precisely because a strong moral upbringing was considered so essential. This resulted in court cases as early as the mid‐​1800s as Catholic students objected to Protestant versions of the Bible and prayers. Since the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom was initially limited to the federal government, these cases related to religion in public schools were heard in state courts. Some of the rulings are rather shocking by today’s standards. For example, in the 1859 Massachusetts case Commonwealth v. Cooke , Judge Maine ruled against allowing the state to prosecute a public school teacher who had struck an 11‐​year‐​old Catholic boy on his palms for 30 minutes using a long, thick rattan stick for refusing to recite Protestant prayers. The punishment only stopped when […]

By : Markus McDowell Tags: