Ninth Circuit Ok’s School Deception

of Parents on Sex-Ed Survey

November 03, 2005

By A. Urti

http://www.reclaimamerica.org/Pages/News/newspageprint.asp?story=2942

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with California’s Palmdale School District in a case where parents of students alleged that the school had interfered with their constitutional rights by authorizing a survey to be administered to their children without disclosing to the parents that the survey contained questions covering sexual subjects.

According to the American Family Association’s Center for Law and Policy, the parents of children between the ages of seven and ten received a letter of “warning” prior to administering the survey. The letter described the goal of the assessment as establishing a community baseline measure of children’s exposure to early trauma (for example, violence). The letter did not disclose that of 79 questions, the children would be asked ten questions rating areas such as touching my private parts, thinking about having sex, having sex feelings in my body and can’t stop thinking about sex.

In ruling against the parents, the court said, “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.”

According to the ruling, parents have less authority over their children than does the state. In other words, the ruling seems to fall in line with a communist “ideal,” where the state becomes the primary moral authority in the lives of children.

Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute views the ruling this way. “It’s a complete trump card that the Ninth Circuit has handed our public education with regards to children, and we're not talking about instruction dealing with academics, it has all to do with the morals and behavior of a child.”

Source List:

“Ninth Circuit on Slams Parental Rights,” Family News in Focus, November 2, 2005.
http://www.family.org/cforum/fnif/news/a0038475.cfm