You may have heard by now that a panel of justices on the California Court of Appeal issued a ruling in February that said there is no Constitutional right to home school your children. Other bloggers have made statement such as:
- California court hates homeschoolers
- Memo to California Appellate Court: May Your Evil Ruling Go to Hell
You can find others who don't approve of this decision. This decision confirms a few things for me.
The first is that "judicial activism" isn't much more than a code for "a decision I don't like." It's now about as meaningless as "fascism." What happened in this case? A panel of justices looked to settled California law (from 1953) and applied its holding. That's called "stare decisis." I had thought that was a good thing. They also looked at the statutes enacted by the state legislature and upheld them. I had thought that was a good thing. If, on the other hand, you really don't care about judicial process but only your favored ends, you might not be so approving.
The second is that I should no longer be amazed that persons who would never accept at face value a newspaper story about religion (like the two bloggers linked to above), or whatever their area of great interest is, can be so credulous about everything else they read in the newspaper. I mean, if you think that the press just doesn't get religion, why do you think that it would just get everything else?
Here's what's going on in the case. The father says this:
Phillip Long, who is not related to the education secretary, said Friday that Schwarzenegger's support for his family's case was good news.
"The parent-child relationship existed long before any government and makes it the responsibility of the parent to educate the child," he said. That responsibility includes protecting one's children from "things hazardous to the child, emotionally as well as physically," he said.
Long, 54, said he specifically objected to his children being taught in school about evolution and homosexuality.
"I want to keep and protect them until I feel they're mature enough to deal with these issues," he said. "I believe the creator wants us to protect our children from things we believe are hazardous to their character."
The father is full of crap. Surely the things hazardous to his children's characters include the abuse they received at home from him and others. This case has little to do with home schooling and far more to do with an abuser who wants to maintain control of his victims.
At the end of the published decision, the justices have a cryptic line that begins, "Given the history of this family, which we need not discuss here . . . ." They then make a footnote reference to their unpublished opinion in this case. If you want to know that history and the background of this case, read the unpublished opinion:
- Lexis: 2007 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 9290
- Westlaw: 2007 WL 4112168
If you don't have access to Lexis or Westlaw, a copy of the opinion from Lexis can be found through this post (click the link in the 2nd paragraph for "related case").
Update (3/11): Some language changed to make it more temperate.
