The Fourth R - Hardcover

DelFattore, Joan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300102178 ISBN 13: 9780300102178

Publisher: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004

Synopsis

Contrary to popular belief God has certainly not been kicked out of the public schools. What is banned is state-sponsored prayer not the religious speech of the students themselves. But as news stories political speeches and lawsuits amply demonstrate this approach has by no means resolved the long-standing debate over religion in public education. While some people challenge the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance with its reference to one nation under God others view school shootings and the terrorism of 9/11 as evidence that organised prayer must once again become part of the official school day. In this lively book Joan DelFattore traces the evolution of school-prayer battles from the early 1800s when children were beaten or expelled for refusing to read the King James Bible to current disputes over prayer at public-school football games. Underlying these events she shows is a struggle to balance two of the most fundamental tenets of Americanism: majority rule and individual rights. Her highly readable book explores the enduring tension between people of good will who wish the schools to promote majoritarian beliefs and equally well-meaning (and often religiou

About this title

About the Author

Joan DelFattore is professor of English and legal studies at the University of Delaware.

From the Back Cover

"The Fourth R offers a thorough and thoughtful look at the long evolution of religion in the public school. Even those who think they know this history will be surprised by the drama played out across three centuries by the courts, the Congress, and ever-expanding advocacy groups. A must-read and an important contribution to American religious and social history." - Rev. Robert Edgar, General Secretary, National Chamber of Churches; "Joan DelFattore has written a solid, sane, reasonable discussion of the perennial debate about the place of religion in public schools in the United States. It is both informative and readable, leavened with the author's witty asides." - Diane Ravitch, author of The Language Police

Reviews

DelFattore, professor of English and legal studies at the University of Delaware and author of What Johnny Shouldn't Read, makes a scholarly but accessible analysis of the history of the debate over religious speech in America's public schools. While her emphasis is on the evolution of legal precedent, she sets court decisions in the context of the political and social struggles prompting judicial or legislative intervention, even including an appendix identifying contemporary advocacy groups. In early America, she notes, the question wasn't "whether to promote religion but whose religion to promote." Protestants believed themselves so mainstream that their school prayers could be considered "nonsectarian," while Catholics opposed use of the King James Bible, the singing of Protestant hymns and the Protestant custom of prayer without commentary. School boards responded by generating what they considered generic prayers and allowing dissenters to abstain, but pressure mounted in the early 20th century to eliminate prayer altogether, since, some said, it represented state endorsement of religion. Finally, in a series of rulings in the 1960s, the Supreme Court banned school authorities from instituting prayers, regardless of their generality. Pro-prayer forces fought back every way they could-proposed constitutional amendments, state court challenges, silent prayer initiatives-but it is the right to free speech that has saved prayer so far, according to the author. Under the "equal access" doctrine, both secular and religious expression by students are equally protected. DelFattore walks readers through the ins-and-outs of this long, complex and unfinished battle with clarity, evenhandedness and even a touch of humor.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300102178
• ISBN 13: 9780300102178
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 353