Legal Commentary

I'm sorry more folks in the legal blogosphere haven't written more about some of the more perfervid reactions to President Obama's upcoming speech to school children, although Jim Lindgren has an oddly composed, if somewhat be-suspicious-but-verify in tone, post on it today.  Here's a New York Times article on the subject, with lots of examples of people worrying that Obama will indoctrinate the nation's youth into his secret plan for socialism, parents demanding opt-out rights, and so on.  I should add up front that to the extent that it is true that anyone thought the idea of these children writing letters to the President was a good idea, I'm rather glad it was scotched, although it could of course have been done in a perfectly inoffensive and educationally appropriate way.

I could understand this kind of sentiment coming from vigorous anti-public school types, who naturally might believe that any and all public education is a form of indoctrination, and thus that this speech is no different than but equally offensive as what happens every day in the public schools.  That would be an intellectually consistent position, right or wrong.  I do not get the sense it represents the views of many of these parents and public officials, who are all in favor of indoctrination on matters that could rightly be seen as controversial -- say,the question of masturbation and oral sex should be acknowledged in school to be acceptable forms of contraceptive sexual practice, or whether one should actually love one's country -- but for some reason view the President addressing school children as a unique danger.  

Two things strike me about this "controversy" -- if it is that, and not simply a case of a few nuts with good access to media outlets.  One is the parallel to the Pledge of Allegiance controversy following the Ninth Circuit's decision in Newdow.  Of course, part of the question there was religious, and had to do with whether the words "Under God" could be said by anyone at all.  And perhaps all the people complaining in this case believe that school children should have an opt-out right with respect to the Pledge just as they are arguing for one here.  But it seems to me that this is far-fetched; surely many of the people who are demanding that their children be allowed to skip the President's speech believe that children ought to be made to stay in class for the Pledge, and indeed to say it.  Surely that is true of some of the Senators, too, who piled on to the Ninth Circuit's ruling so quickly.  It is interesting that it turns out to be both controversial to forbid indoctrination into the Pledge of Allegiance and to require attendance (and not indoctrination) when the President of the United States gives a speech to school children.  Second, I wonder whether the advocates of opt-out rights in this case believe that this is a special case, or whether they think opt-out rights should be available in every situation.  On any given day, schools teach far more controversial values to their children -- say, that one ought to love one's country, or for that matter one's neighbors.  When should parents be able to pull their children out of school for those reasons?