The March of a New Orthodoxy

The March of a New Orthodoxy

Volume 102, Program 27
2/8/2011


Should homeschooling be outlawed? Some influential academic elites think so—and they have a plan. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris reveals the agenda, in its proponents’ own words.


Mike Farris:


Kimberly Yuracko, who’s a law professor at Northwestern University, contends that there must be new government controls on parents who, quote, “want to teach against the enlightenment.”1


Catherine Ross, of George Washington Law School, declares: “. . . society need not and should not tolerate the inculcation of absolutist views that undermine toleration . . .. [T]he state can and should limit the ability of intolerant homeschoolers to inculcate hostility to difference in their children.”2






And what solution does she offer? I quote: “I propose that we add to the civics education goals of the state, including lessons on mutual respect for diverse populations and viewpoints as a mandatory curricular requirement.”3


Martha Fineman, from Emory University School of Law, goes further. She concludes: “. . . [T]he more appropriate suggestion for our current educational dilemma is that public education should be mandatory and universal.”4


In short: private education should be banned—all of it. Private schools, religious schools, homeschools.


Make no mistake about it. This is the march of a new orthodoxy. It is a competing religion. If you refuse to subscribe to this article of faith, your rights won’t be protected—and you will be persecuted.


I’m Mike Farris.


Footnotes


1Kimberly A. Yuracko, “Education Off the Grid: Constitutional Constraints on Homeschooling,” California Law Review 96 (February 2008): 183.

2Catherine Ross, “Fundamentalist Challenges to Core Democratic Values: Exit and Homeschooling,” William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal 18 (May 2010): 1005.


3Ibid., 1008.


4Martha Albertson Fineman, “Taking Children’s Interests Seriously,” in What Is Right for Children? The Competing Paradigms of Religion and Human Rights, ed. Martha Albertson Fineman and Karen Worthington, 229-37 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2009), 237.