9th Circuit Court decides the State

[Mickey]

Jesus Herbert Christ. Talk about your liberal do-gooders looking to create a disease so they can come up with some elaborate scheme to treat the symptoms. And how much do you think all this will end up costing? Wanna know why education costs continue to skyrocket year in and year out there's your answer right there.

 

Generations of school kids used to get through the schools just fine without the constant psychoanalysis. Not only that, now if they show the slightest bit of energy or normal aggression they get medicated. WTF has the educational system come to?

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Sure sounds ike a goofy study that should have been cut at the knees at a school board meeting. Don't need a constitutional crisis to fix this pretty easily.

[Mickey]

How general is too general? 

 

Do you think if the word "sex" was included in that letter at least once the return rate would have been lower? 

 

Do you think the group conducting the test knew that? 

 

If so, was that letter complete in your view?

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Sure, it was a lousy info sheet though it did give all the info they needed to make further inquiry. The only true way to present it would be to include all the questions, all 200 or so of them, including the 10 involving sex. What you are describing is more a case for fraud, not a constitutional issue. Plenty of remedy for that. I'm pretty sure this district will never make that mistake again and that others will learn from it and avoid the same error. No need for a federal case.

 

The alternative is just too difficult to even consider. 1,000 kids with 2,000 parents all with their own sensibilities and demanding a "right" to their own tailored not to offend curriculums. Impossible.

 

The district here tried to do the right thing with the consent form, they just did a bad job.

[OGTEleven]

Don't need a constitutional crisis to fix this pretty easily.

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"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two different things.

 

The district here tried to do the right thing with the consent form, they just did a bad job......

 

......or they left out the third rail on purpose. I'm sure you're correct about fraud being the issue. Comforting, isn't it?

[Taro T]

She was wrong, I agree, the consent should have had more information.  She should be disciplined for that and everyone should agree not to make that mistake again.  No need for a new constitutional right.

 

Check the opinion again, the court repeatedly says you can keep your kid away from that stuff.  You don't have to send them to school but once you decide to do that, you can't control the curriculum.  The partial solution and this is what is often done, is kids are sent to school but held out of the activity the parent objects to, they go to study hall or something.  What they can't do is change the whole lesson plan for one kid or two or three.  The flow of info for everyone else has to be there while those other kids are in study hall waiting for the "bad" class to end.  Really, we seem to agree here. 

 

"Exclusive" was not only in the opinion, it was central to it:

 

"The question before us is simply whether the parents have a constitutional right to exclusive control over the introduction and flow of sexual information to their children."

 

and:

 

"Thus, whether the parents have a constitutional right to exclusive control over the introduction and flow of sexual information to their children depends entirely upon

whether the asserted right is encompassed within some broader constitutional right."

 

In their holding, they put the word in italics to emphasize its importance, the italics were omitted in most the article cited to start this thread.

 

"We agree, and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children,

either independent of their right to direct the upbringing and education of their children or encompassed by it."

 

The court even mentioned the activism angle the plaintiffs were expressly inviting, so its not just me:

 

"The parents cite no case recognizing such a curriculum exception.  They simply urge that we create one..."

 

Don't get me wrong, the school district was a pack of morons on this one, no question.  We just don't need a whole new right breeding tons of cases over parental objections to curriculum.  We have too many cases and not enough judges as it is.

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Well, I'll respect your opinion on this, but I just can't keep from seeing it from the flip side that these words in this ruling are actually stating that "educators" don't need to take the views of the parents into consideration before letting loose with any other program that is this moronic. I am still taking out of this ruling that the district doesn't even need to point out to the parents beforehand that they want to do something this poorly thought out. I hope that I am just reading it wrong.

[finknottle]

That was not their ruling.

 

The parents claimed in this suit, and they fully admitted this so it wasn't even in dispute, ...

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Honestly, it is simply amazing how this ruling can be explained over and over again and you still get off-base blather about the feds trumping parental rights, about activist judges legislating from the benches, ...

 

Crap Throwing Monkey was correct in intimating that my first impression was correct: this forum is a retard-rodeo.

 

Should we be outraged about the survey? Sure. But anybody who is still getting mad at the court about this (let alone the feds) instead of the local school board is simply too clueless to ever understand it.

[finknottle]

Well, I'll respect your opinion on this, but I just can't keep from seeing it from the flip side that these words in this ruling are actually stating that "educators" don't need to take the views of the parents into consideration before letting loose with any other program that is this moronic.  I am still taking out of this ruling that the district doesn't even need to point out to the parents beforehand that they want to do something this poorly thought out.  I hope that I am just reading it wrong.

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No different from the fact that "legislators" don't need to take the views of the people into consideration before letting loose with any other program that is this moronic.

 

Would you consider a court that affirmed this to be activist?

 

In both cases, the bodies setting policy are (theoretically) answerable to the people. And in the case of local education, parents have the added option of opting out of the public schools (try opting out of State and Federal laws... )

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Do you think parents should have the right to exclusive (ie, no involvement of anyone else at all, no one) control over every lesson, every book, every activity, every everything they are exposed to, taught, shown, etc. in public schools?

 

Yes or no.

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Actually...the more I think about that argument, the more specious it seems. When I flip it on its head - does the school have the right to exclusive control over every lesson, every book, everything else... - I keep hitting up against the simple fact that the school specifically requested permission from parents with regards to this survey. That in itself is a de facto admission of parental control over this specific survey (and I'm still not clear that the survey was officially within the school's curriculum or administered by a third party...but whatever, the court clearly established the school's responsibility for it. Good enough for me, even from those chimpanzees on the Ninth Circus.)

 

I guess the problem I have with this whole thing is that, to me, the issue is one of informed consent: I don't see where the school clearly outlined the nature of the questions on the survey to the parents when requesting their consent. It would have been a relatively simple thing to include in the consent letter something along the lines of "Some of the questions will deal with the subject of sexuality in children" or something. That it didn't - that the consent wasn't fully informed - is the root cause of the issue that some parents ended up with their children being exposed to ideas they would rather not have had them exposed to. I do not see where THAT would involve establishing the exclusive right of parents to determine school curriculum; rather, it seems no different to me from the parental right to confirm or deny a child's participation in a field trip.

 

If your expression of the case - that the parents were asking the court to legislate from the bench a new parental right - is correct, then I believe the parents are idiots for bringing the wrong case to the bench. Which does not excuse the school from their idiocy, or the Ninth Circus from theirs...even if they happened, this time around, to not apply it.

[Taro T]

No different from the fact that "legislators" don't need to take the views of the people into consideration before letting loose with any other program that is this moronic. 

 

Would you consider a court that affirmed this to be activist?

 

In both cases,  the bodies setting policy are (theoretically) answerable to the people.  And in the case of local education,  parents have the added option of opting out of the public schools (try opting out of State and Federal laws... )

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Well considering legislators are actually elected and the "volunteer" that came up with this mess wasn't in any way, shape, or form I think that it is different.

 

My concern, and why I claim the Court is activist is that it stated, in my reading of it, that parents now have no right to control or oversee what a teacher or "educator" wants to present to their children. Considering the fact that this survey had to have "parental approval" in the form of a misleading consent form, I think that even this school board and the "volunteer" running the program believed that parents have some rights regarding their children's educations. If my reading of the decision is correct, and parents do not have that right according to the 9th/8th court, I have a big problem with that, as it is almost impossible to get rid of a poor teacher with tenure in many school districts. If I am mistaken in what the Court actually decreed, then cool. But every time I read the decision, I keep coming back to the same place, that is that parents were just denied one more opportunity to keep "education" within the framework they are comfortable with. (By the way, I don't see this as a clearly right wing loss; I can definitely see "liberal" parents in Kansas or other more conservative regions thinking that they took it up the back side as well.)

[Mickey]

"Shouldn't" and "don't" are two different things.

......or they left out the third rail on purpose.  I'm sure you're correct about fraud being the issue.  Comforting, isn't it?

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Do you think there was a conspiracy on the part of the school district to indut first graders into a porn ring or do you think it more likely that they trusted the researcher involved and never read the 200 or so questions on the three separate tests which were part of the study, all of which were originally drafted by well known firms?

 

Given the purpose of the study, the kinds of questions they asked had to be asked. You can't have a test on emotional and psychiatric issues without asking about sex the same way you can't have a math test without asking about math. Really the only problem at all involved here is that the consent forms lacked information that 5 or 6 parents at the school would have considered critical in terms of their consent. Note that this wasn't a class action suit involving hundreds of parents and students. Even after all was known, only a handful felt that the best option was a constitutional law case in federal court. I would bank on their litigation costs being covered by some political group having their own reasons to bring a case any lawyer would have said, from the start, was a total loser. If it was their own dime, those parents wouldn't have sued.

 

I don't know what group fronted the costs or even if there was one, I am just speculating.

 

What do you think about the article that was linked at the start of this thread that just happened to leave out the fact that the parents signed consent forms for their kids to participate in the study? That is like writing an article on the destruction of the Hindenburg without mentioning that there was a fire.

[erynthered]

Great, you agree with the Ninth Circuit then. 

 

As to your question, I already answered that with regard to my kids.  I wouldn't have signed the consent form.  At the very least, I would have asked questions just as the info sheet from the district provided.  I would have had the right to pull my kid from that class that day.  Just as these parents did.  What I couldn't do is to stop other kids whose parents were okay with the study from participating.

 

Simple.

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No you didn't. As usual, you cant answer a simple question, simply.

[Mickey]

Actually...the more I think about that argument, the more specious it seems.  When I flip it on its head - does the school have the right to exclusive control over every lesson, every book, everything else... - I keep hitting up against the simple fact that the school specifically requested permission from parents with regards to this survey.  That in itself is a de facto admission of parental control over this specific survey (and I'm still not clear that the survey was officially within the school's curriculum or administered by a third party...but whatever, the court clearly established the school's responsibility for it.  Good enough for me, even from those chimpanzees on the Ninth Circus.)

 

I guess the problem I have with this whole thing is that, to me, the issue is one of informed consent: I don't see where the school clearly outlined the nature of the questions on the survey to the parents when requesting their consent.  It would have been a relatively simple thing to include in the consent letter something along the lines of "Some of the questions will deal with the subject of sexuality in children" or something.  That it didn't - that the consent wasn't fully informed - is the root cause of the issue that some parents ended up with their children being exposed to ideas they would rather not have had them exposed to.  I do not see where THAT would involve establishing the exclusive right of parents to determine school curriculum; rather, it seems no different to me from the parental right to confirm or deny a child's participation in a field trip.

 

If your expression of the case - that the parents were asking the court to legislate from the bench a new parental right - is correct, then I believe the parents are idiots for bringing the wrong case to the bench.  Which does not excuse the school from their idiocy, or the Ninth Circus from theirs...even if they happened, this time around, to not apply it. 

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That is exactly what it came down to, the poorly drafted consent letter which could have included more information than it did. That is what led to the original problem, parents who, once they knew the details and too late, objected to their kids being in the study. There are political, administrative and even legal remedies to that problem (an action for fraud perhaps?). The remedy they chose and I have to beleive it was upon the political/legal advice of whoever it was who funded this litigation (I doubt the parents paid out of their own pocket), was to use this as a test case to try and get the Ninth to rewrite the law on this issue and create a right for each parent to have exclusive control over the curriculum available to all kids, not just their own. The court didn't bite. There were other arguments they could have made the might have been more successful if the goal was to win this case but that wasn't the goal. They wanted not only to win but to win on a particular ground.

 

It really is a conflict as old as the hills. Anytime people come together in groups they have to figure out how to make rules and get along. Hence legislators and lawmaking, hence school boards. In those bodies the collective will is expressed and laws agreed to or policies or curriculums, etc. Its all hunky dory but problems arise for individuals who disagree with the majority. To the extent possible, it is nice to accomodate those mavericks and malcontents whether they are fundamentalist Christians or Darwinian Lesbians for Christ or whatever. That consent form was a way to accomodate those who might object, a laudable effort that was botched. Fundamentally though, the collective "we" have to decide on a curriculum and once decided, no one person or minority group can cancel that, they can just be conscientous objectors and sit out the lecture on the "Do's and Don'ts of clitoral stimulation".

[Mickey]

No you didn't. As usual, you cant answer a simple question, simply.

506425[/snapback]

Having trouble reading today? I answered "No...", I'll save you the checking:

 

No, but I also won't let my daughter play dodgeball, do I have a constitutional right to shut down dodgeball at the entire school? Court cases aren't about what is right and what is wrong, they are about what is so wrong its actionable. In the constitutional realm, that bar is as high as it can get."

 

Do you want to talk about the Ninth Circuit's decision in this case or do you want to have a general discussion about what kids should and should not be exposed to?

 

I am talking about the law, and you want to talk about something else. I'm sure you understand that not every wrong is constitutionally actionable nor should it be.

 

Is the sex issue really the only issue that interests you here? Would the parent's case have been weaker if the questions they objected to had to do with violence, the holocaust, slavery, the origins of life, politics or any number of other issues potentially offensive to some parents? There isn't a special constitutional right here whose existence depends on whether sex is involved but evaporates if the item on the curriculum is offensive on some other basis to some other parents.

 

If you disagree with Court's ruling, please suggest to me how they should have ruled so I can understand the constitutional right that you would have created here. I won't even ask you to justify their overruling a line of precedents from every circuit court and the Supreme court long enough to choke a lawyer's horse.

[finknottle]

Well considering legislators are actually elected and the "volunteer" that came up with this mess wasn't in any way, shape, or form I think that it is different.

 

My concern, and why I claim the Court is activist is that it stated, in my reading of it, that parents now have no right to control or oversee what a teacher or "educator" wants to present to their children.  Considering the fact that this survey had to have "parental approval" in the form of a misleading consent form, I think that even this school board and the "volunteer" running the program believed that parents have some rights regarding their children's educations.  If my reading of the decision is correct, and parents do not have that right according to the 9th/8th court, I have a big problem with that, as it is almost impossible to get rid of a poor teacher with tenure in many school districts.  If I am mistaken in what the Court actually decreed, then cool.  But every time I read the decision, I keep coming back to the same place, that is that parents were just denied one more opportunity to keep "education" within the framework they are comfortable with.  (By the way, I don't see this as a clearly right wing loss; I can definitely see "liberal" parents in Kansas or other more conservative regions thinking that they took it up the back side as well.)

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Everybody agreed that parents have rights - hence the form. The argument was whether or not they had exclusive rights. I do think you might be misreading it.

 

School boards are elected (at least in my area). The fact that they delegated a task to somebody (whether paid or a volunteer) doesn't matter - they are responsible. That's the way our system works, in everything.

 

Do you think congressmen write their own legislation? Most of the time they have not even read all of what they submit (at least that's what they have claimed in the past when a politically embarrasing element has emerged). It is often written by a mix of the people who want the legislation and some under-paid interns.

 

So back to the school board. If they are running a system where they are not using quality people (ie the volunteer) or providing adequate information to the parents (ie the consent form), then ones beef should be with them. Vote them out.

 

Here's a flip-side argument which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned. Do people who don't like this ruling think a parent should have the right to sue a school board for teaching Evolution? For teaching ID? For mentioning God? For mentioning supply-side economics? Shouldn't parents have the exclusive right to control what a child is exposed to in school, in essence a veto? If not, isn't that an infringement on my exclusive right to control what my child is exposed to?

[KRC]

Do you think congressmen write their own legislation?  Most of the time they have not even read all of what they submit  (at least that's what they have claimed in the past when a politically embarrasing element has emerged).  It is often written by a mix of the people who want the legislation and some under-paid interns.

 

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I am not sure about other states (I am guessing it is the same), there is a Legislative Review Board which basically writes the legislation in the proper format and in proper legalize. It is really not that difficult, but the research is intense. I have written three bills and each took me about two months of work (and these bills are relatively simple). It is pretty rare that the legislator actually writes any of their bills. They will write up the concept and that is about the extent.

 

On bills they did not write, they receive bill summaries (I have written them, too) and usually have their legal council review the actual bill before deciding to vote yea or nea. It is rare that they actually read the real bill.

[erynthered]

America’s parents are now being told that, if they choose to educate their children in the public schools, they forfeit any fundamental right to control the education of their own children. Nice. The big lesson here is the fact that a federal appeals court dared to hand down such a decision and to cloak its assault on parental rights in language that gives government officials virtual carte blanche over the sexual education of children. Look at it anyway you like Mickey, its !@#$. Before the surveys were administered, parents signed consent forms. But the consent forms never mentioned that sex would be a topic.

 

 

 

 

The split of this Court will be good news when it happens.

[Taro T]

Everybody agreed that parents have rights - hence the form.  The argument was whether or not they had exclusive rights.  I do think you might be misreading it.

 

School boards are elected (at least in my area).  The fact that they delegated a task to somebody (whether paid or a volunteer) doesn't matter - they are responsible.  That's the way our system works,  in everything.

 

Do you think congressmen write their own legislation?  Most of the time they have not even read all of what they submit  (at least that's what they have claimed in the past when a politically embarrasing element has emerged).  It is often written by a mix of the people who want the legislation and some under-paid interns.

 

So back to the school board.  If they are running a system where they are not using quality people (ie the volunteer) or providing adequate information to the parents (ie the consent form),  then ones beef should be with them.  Vote them out.

 

Here's a flip-side argument which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned.  Do people who don't like this ruling think a parent should have the right to sue a school board for teaching Evolution?  For teaching ID?  For mentioning God?  For mentioning supply-side economics?  Shouldn't parents have the exclusive right to control what a child is exposed to in school,  in essence a veto?  If not,  isn't that an infringement on my exclusive right to control what my child is exposed to?

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I understand that the plaintiffs were arguing that they had exclusive rights in regards their children's education and I agree that they are probably wrong IMHO about that. I do not have a problem with the 1st part of the ruling, but do have a problem with the next sentence (the one that starts "we also hold").

 

We agree and hold that there is no fundamental right of parents to be the exclusive provider of information regarding sexual matters to their children. WE ALSO HOLD that parents have no due process or privacy right to override the determinations of public schools as to the information to which their children will be exposed while enrolled as students.  Finally we hold that the defendants' actions were rationally related to a legitimate state purpose.

 

The wording is such that parents have NO ... RIGHT, not no exclusive right, but no right. I am reading that as stating that if you enroll your child in public school, then no matter what the teachers, or in this case "volunteers", want to expose your children to, you just have to send the kid to class and hope that you can undo whatever damage it causes.

 

I agree with you that prior to the ruling everyone agreed the parents had rights. I am not certain that that is the case after the ruling due to the wording.

[Mickey]

America’s parents are now being told that, if they choose to educate their children in the public schools, they forfeit any fundamental right to control the education of their own children. Nice. The big lesson here is the fact that a federal appeals court dared to hand down such a decision and to cloak its assault on parental rights in language that gives government officials virtual carte blanche over the sexual education of children. Look at it anyway you like Mickey, its !@#$. Before the surveys were administered, parents signed consent forms. But the consent forms never mentioned that sex would be a topic.

The split of this Court will be good news when it happens.

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I don't know how many more times it can be explained to you that in fact, a parent does have the right to control the education of their own child. What they don't have is the right to control the curriculum for all the kids. Thus, they can keep their kids out of health class the day they talk about sperm and eggs. What they can't do is force the school to drop the class for everyone else. Doesn't the consent form that told parents they could opt out of the study with not penalty or denial of elegibility for services show that to be the case? It was just a badly done consent form that's all.

 

Do you really think there was a shool district conspiracy to "cloak" this study and dupe parents? What was the motivation? What interest did the school have in coming up with an elaborate scheme to get some kids to respond to 200 questions of which 10 had something to do with sex? Why was it so critically important for the district to get a few 7 year olds to answer those lousy ten questions? It makes so little sense that it borders on the ludicrous.

 

I have also pointed out to you that this decision was by three judges, one of whom was not from the Ninth Circuit. Also, the precedent they relied upon and from where the language you most object to originated is out of the First Circuit. Lastly, there are precedents upholding the exact same principle from just about every other Circuit in the land. Do you dispute any of those facts at all? If not, why then do you keep blaming this on the Ninth Circuit as if they came out of left field with this ruling? They may do that waaaay too often on other issues but the clear undeniable fact is that on this one, their ruling was dead on mainstream.

[Mickey]

I understand that the plaintiffs were arguing that they had exclusive rights in regards their children's education and I agree that they are probably wrong IMHO about that.  I do not have a problem with the 1st part of the ruling, but do have a problem with the next sentence (the one that starts "we also hold").

The wording is such that parents have NO ... RIGHT, not no exclusive right, but no right.  I am reading that as stating that if you enroll your child in public school, then no matter what the teachers, or in this case "volunteers", want to expose your children to, you just have to send the kid to class and hope that you can undo whatever damage it causes.

 

I agree with you that prior to the ruling everyone agreed the parents had rights.  I am not certain that that is the case after the ruling due to the wording.

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I understand the confusion over that part of the ruling but what it means is that a parent can't veto the schools choices on curriculum, it doesn't meant that they can't have their kid stay out of a particular class. "...determinations of public schools as to the information..." That means: curriculum. If you read the entire opinion you will see that they cited with approval a whole bunch of cases where parents in fact held their kids out of a class or activity. What they can't do is change the curriculum which, by definition, is what all the kids are being taught.

 

For example, lets say that the state standards require that evolution be taught and tested in science classes. Clearly, in reponse local school districts are going to put evolution in the curriculum. If you object to that, you can hold you kid home that day from school or have them skip every science class during which evolution is taught. However, when your kid takes his science test, evolution will be on there and you can't ask that your kid be given a diffent test because he knows nothing abuot evolution because you found it offensive.

 

Because parents have the freedom to just pull their kids from offensive educational programs, this line of cases has gone largely unnoticed and has been relatively free of controversey. This case involved sex and the Ninth Circuit and some conservatives saw an opportunity so a big deal is being made out of it. The language you are worried about is right of other, older cases. Its only news now because of the misinterpretation and outright misleading coverage from the right.

 

Again, the fact that the whole article that started this thread omits one of the single most important facts of the whole case, that the parents involved signed a consent form, tells you all you need to know. This case is being used for propaganda and fortunately for those using it, the issue is just complicated enough and the opinion just long enough to allow them to get away with it.

 

Do you think this thread would be as long as it is if the post that started it said:

 

"Parents who signed consent form to study can't sue over their kids participation in the study"

[erynthered]

I don't know how many more times it can be explained to you that in fact, a parent does have the right to control the education of their own child.  What they don't have is the right to control the curriculum for all the kids.  Thus, they can keep their kids out of health class the day they talk about sperm and eggs.  What they can't do is force the school to drop the class for everyone else.  Doesn't the consent form that told parents they could opt out of the study with not penalty or denial of elegibility for services show that to be the case? It was just a badly done consent form that's all.

 

Do you really think there was a shool district conspiracy to "cloak" this study and dupe parents?  What was the motivation?  What interest did the school have in coming up with an elaborate scheme to get some kids to respond to 200 questions of which 10 had something to do with sex?  Why was it so critically important for the district to get a few 7 year olds to answer those lousy ten questions?  It makes so little sense that it borders on the ludicrous. 

 

I have also pointed out to you that this decision was by three judges, one of whom was not from the Ninth Circuit.  Also, the precedent they relied upon and from where the language you most object to originated is out of the First Circuit.  Lastly, there are precedents upholding the exact same principle from just about every other Circuit in the land.  Do you dispute any of those facts at all?  If not, why then do you keep blaming this on the Ninth Circuit as if they came out of left field with this ruling?  They may do that waaaay too often on other issues but the clear undeniable fact is that on this one, their ruling was dead on mainstream.

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As a legal matter, the case was most likely rightly decided based on the law. I even said that early on. Where I answered your question with one word. You know where you couldnt do that, remember? I just dont have to like it, I'm glad you do. If the town pervert had grilled the seven year olds on masturbation, it would have been a crime. In the same way, I can hardly imagine the Ninth Circuit upholding a law that would give parents the exclusive right to education their children about sex. And that is just not right.

 

 

I'm done.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Sure sounds ike a goofy study that should have been cut at the knees at a school board meeting.  Don't need a constitutional crisis to fix this pretty easily.

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True...but the question then begs, why even hear the case? Why not just say "This is an issue between the school board and parents, and will not be considered by this court"?