From the November/December 2006 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
Human rights should not be viewed as being in conflict with the promotion of pluralism. At the core, any theory of human rights views the decisions of individuals for their own lives to be presumptively superior to governmental authority. Of course, there are limits to this theory, and not all things that are claimed to be a human right survive logical analysis. But there is something about the right of private judgment that is fundamental to the idea of human rights.
One of the most important applications of this right of private judgment, at least to the homeschooling community, is the right of parents to decide how their children should be educated. Parents should have a prior right to make such decisions that is superior to any claim of government.
Pluralism, properly defined, is a compatible goal with human rights. In an operational sense, pluralism means that people of different races, religions, and views should live together with mutual respect and as equal citizens.
A government may promote pluralism. But if pluralism and human rights are to mean anything, they must mean that a person may not be compelled to give up his or her individual views in the name of making a pluralistic society. In fact, coerced pluralism is a self-defeating objective. Read the rest of this entry »
From the July/August 2006 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
I litigated the case that history may judge to be a turning point in parents’ rights. Mozert v. Hawkins County Public Schools (1987) was touted by the media as the “Scopes II” trial. Not only was Mozert tried in Tennessee, but it involved evolution, religion, and a cloud of media onlookers. Attorney Timothy Dyk, now a federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton, was hired by People for the American Way to defend the school district. Beverly LaHaye’s Concerned Women for America employed me as their general counsel to represent the parents whose children had been expelled from the Hawkins County Public Schools.
Why were these children expelled? They refused to read a series of reading books that violated their religious beliefs.
The purpose of the lawsuit was to seek to restore the right of these students to attend public school and be given an alternative reading assignment.
The central issue in the case was: Do parents and children who have sincere religious objections to public school curriculum have the right to alternative instruction for the objectionable material?
The answer given by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was clear: Parents have no such right. Once a child has been submitted to the public schools for his education, parents lose all ability to control the course of instruction. Read the rest of this entry »
From the March/April 2005 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a threat that longtime homeschoolers know well. If ratified by the United States Senate, it would ban spanking in our country. Homeschooling would no longer be governed by state law, but by a 10-member committee of child welfare “experts” in Geneva. Even our right to teach our children that Jesus is the only way to God would be in jeopardy.
Aware of this threat, homeschoolers and other parental rights advocates have been ready for battle for some time. In fact, the reason that this treaty was never sent from the State Department to the Senate for ratification, after being signed by then President Bill Clinton on February 16, 1995, is that it faced certain defeat. As a friend of traditional families, President George W. Bush has simply not moved it at all.
However, a new challenge to American families and our constitutional republic has been launched by the federal judiciary. Under a legal doctrine sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts have begun to treat unratified treaties as binding on the United States. Already one federal district court has employed this doctrine to declare that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC or CRC) is binding on the United States even though it has never been ratified by the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »
