Values orientation in American public schools

Unlike other nations, such as South Africa, the extensive history of litigation involving values in American public schools has been inextricably connected with religion. As the Supreme Court observed in Lynch v Donnelly, a non-school when it upheld the display of a city-owned creche in a park in Rhode Island, "[t]here is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789". This sentiment is perhaps best represented in Justice Douglas' oft-quoted expression in Zorach v Clauson, where the Supreme Court asserted pointedly in validating a program allowing release of public school students from classes to attend off-campus religious exercises in New York City, "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." Yet, despite the Court's observations, over fifty years of public school-related establishment clause litigation since 1948 has produced badly split decisions regarding the place of religion in public education. In light of the tensions that emerge over the place of religion and values orientation in the market place of ideas, this article provides an American perspective on the place of religious beliefs and values in public schools.