Student Voices
By: Allison Schneider
The creation and passage of legislation concerning religion is one of many avenues through which legislators and religious, legal, and policy groups can further specific interests related to the promotion of religion. In particular, my summer research project has shown that advocates of Christian nationalism and Christian nationalist organizations use state-level legislation to advance model bills that aim to expand the role of religion in public spaces, including elementary, middle, and high schools. In order to better understand the growing role of Christian nationalism in state legislation, I tracked the progression of a slew of similar bills across 15 states that would allow public schools to employ chaplains as spiritual counselors to some of the United States’ most vulnerable citizens: children (Rotolo; Blad). To learn more about the impact these bills may have on children and to better understand public perceptions of the school chaplain’s initiative, I reviewed publicly available recordings of legislative sessions, committee hearings of public testimony, and news-media coverage of the bills with a special focus on the states that eventually passed their school chaplain legislation: Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.
There are a number of ethical issues at play in the potential passage of these chaplain bills, but the primary among them is the principle of separation of church and state. By compiling and analyzing publicly available legislative sessions and testimonies given by American citizens and special interest groups, I discovered that there are fundamental misunderstandings between Americans regarding the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing a state religion (U.S. Const. amend. I). Citizens and legislators alike who were opposed to the bill often cited the Establishment Clause as a contributing reason for their opposition. This position was brought up many times during legislative sessions across several states, and while this argument worked to help dissuade lawmakers in some states, these pleas went unanswered in others.
In Florida, one of the few states that ended up passing their version of the chaplain bill, the Chair of the state’s Senate Appropriations Committee on Education, Senator Keith Perry (R), said “The separation of church and state by our founding fathers was designed to keep the government out of the church, not the church out of the government” (“Appropriations Committee on Education 01:51:15). What arguments like Senator Perry’s neglect to acknowledge is how important the Establishment Clause is to religious freedom for minority religious groups. By allowing chaplains to work or volunteer in public schools, legislators would be inviting religion into the public arena and offering it as a service to children yes, but not to all children in equal measure. What happens to students who belong to minority religious groups when the only chaplain at their school is Christian? Are they then not afforded the same resources and opportunities as their Christian peers? Are they expected to speak with Christian counselors anyway?
By positioning chaplains as counselors and mentors, and outsourcing mental health care to them, schools are putting their non-Christian students at risk of discriminatory treatment and even proselytization, whether intentional or not. In response to the bills and the issues they pose, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State worked together to prepare three separate open letters addressed to state legislators across the country. The letters represent 200+ chaplains, over 25 faith organizations, and over 30 civil rights organizations explicitly opposed to putting chaplains in public schools (American Civil Liberties Union).
Just as different people have vastly different understandings of the Establishment Clause, people also have varying conceptions of the responsibilities, capabilities, and appropriate qualifications for school chaplains. Issues in the implementation of the chaplain bills are thus further exacerbated by a lack of clarity, qualification, and oversight among many of the different bill iterations. In Florida, for example, HB 931 lists no educational or experiential requirements for volunteer chaplains and instead asks that individual Florida school boards establish their own requirements (“House Bill 931”). In other states like Indiana, the bills require master’s degrees, two years of counseling experience, and more (“Senate Bill 50”).
By listening to the audio and video recordings of these legislative sessions, I learned that additional political and ethical issues were on the minds of Americans. Legislators, school boards, and parents across all 15 states I researched expressed growing concerns about the state of the public-school system and the lack of resources afforded to children in those schools. For many of these concerned citizens, school chaplains were “just another tool” in the toolbox for America’s schools (Texas House Journal 3413). This perspective does not see school chaplains as a potential threat to the religious liberty of students but instead sees them as mentors and mental health counselors available to help struggling students and faculty. Rocky Malloy, CEO of the National School Chaplain Association takes this a step further though, arguing that school chaplains would “increase school security,” “encourage respect for authority,” and “identify behavior threats,” which they are equipped to do because “chaplains are trained in de-escalation techniques” (“Public Education Committee” 08:27:30). By comparing these two camps of supporters of the bills, it becomes increasingly clear that the vast majority of legislators are concerned about the mental health of children. Those with genuine concerns, however, seem unable to recognize the threat that employing religious counselors in public schools poses to children’s religious freedom and well-being.
While this is likely not the intention of the majority of bill supporters, there are some key stakeholders whose stated purpose involves inserting religion, specifically Christianity, into the lives of America’s children. One of these players is the National School Chaplain Association (NSCA), which was involved in the drafting of the original school chaplain bill in Texas (Jenkins). As Texas State Rep. Talarico (D) pointed out during a House debate on SB 763, the Texas chaplain bill, the NSCA’s “stated purpose” is “‘To enhance His presence by infiltrating the system and supporting Christians functioning and operating inside the school systems’” (Texas House Journal 3412). Talarico is not the only person to point out the NSCA’s concerning plans. During a Florida Senate Committee meeting, Florida resident Rev. Dr. Joe Parramore pointed out that “One of the national sponsors of this bill is the National Association of School Chaplains” and “the organization states that specifically, their mission is to recruit, groom, and indoctrinate young people in the name of Christ. For me, that is simply unacceptable when we look at freedom of religion” (“Appropriations Committee on Education 01:37:50).
Despite threats of religious infiltration into public schools, the vast array of concerns voiced about the shortcomings of the public-school system and the struggles that students face in America today remain valid. The question is: would school chaplains help more than they might hurt? Since the passage of the Texas, Florida, and Louisiana versions of the chaplain bill, it seems the general consensus is they will probably hurt. In Texas, each of the state’s over 1,200 school districts had to vote to approve the employment of chaplains in their public schools; an overwhelming majority has voted against the measure in both conservative and liberal areas (Baptist Joint Committee). Many school districts felt implementing the measure would be too much of a burden on the already overworked school board members and would bring contentious, constitutional debates right to school doors. Sponsors of the bills constructed them in such a way as to make implementation a school district problem in order to avoid difficult questions about qualifications and religious representation in the legislative chamber. Any benefit these chaplains might bring to students is thus overshadowed by the amount of work individual school districts would need to do to make the statutes work. [2] [3] The surge in chaplain bills across the United States over the past two years is a symptom of larger issues. Americans from small towns to the U.S. Supreme Court still struggle to come to a consensus on the meaning of the First Amendment and to what extent it should and to what extent it actually does separate church and state. These varying interpretations lead to heated congressional debates, contentious court rulings, inappropriate and convoluted legislation, and plenty of other trickle-down problems, as exemplified by local responses to these chaplain bills. Unfortunately, the misunderstandings and disagreements at the heart of these constitutional issues are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. As a result, we will probably continue to see further iterations of the chaplain bill and other model legislation that aims to place religion firmly in public schools across the country, as evidenced by Louisiana’s House Bill 71 which requires the posting of the 10 Commandments in all public-school classrooms and a recent state directive issued by Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools. The fight is by no means over with the end of this year’s legislative session. As such, legislators, parents, and teachers alike should keep their eyes on these bills and consider first and foremost what will actually benefit their communities in light of the bigger ethical and political issues at play.
Editor: McKenna Kostyszyn
Image Via Pixel
For more ‘Ethics in the News’ and to keep updated with the latest posts, please consider subscribing to the The Ethics and Society Blog today!
The Ethics and Society Blog 