All Quiet in Anaheim

The Family Research Council, a group of politically active social conservatives, has persuaded 41 members of Congress to post the Ten Commandments in their offices. The liberal group People for the American Way responded by sending the congressmen the 1st Amendment. Texas Gov. George W. Bush said last week that he wants more moral values taught and more room for religious expression in schools. The battle of the symbols goes on, in Washington, on the campaign trail, and at home.

The Anaheim Union High School District recently announced it would tack up the golden rule, and this month begin observing a daily “moment of silence” at district schools to help teens reflect on their behavior and values. A moment of silence ostensibly is a neutral gesture, very different from organized school prayer. But in the context of today’s sparring about symbolic overtures, it either can remain what it is or become something else, depending mostly on intention. Recognizing this, the American Civil Liberties Union has signed off provided this doesn’t end up promoting religion.

Whether religion is advanced is the essential question at the root of many debates involving public education dating to a Supreme Court decision in 1947. The court ruled against organized school prayer in 1962, but in the interim has said that students can pray on their own and in groups.

If a moment of silence is not part of some political agenda, the public seems agreeable. In 1994, a U.S. News & World Report survey found that 65% of Americans would support a moment of silence if the Supreme Court reviewed such a case and found the practice acceptable. A period of reflection in a world where kids are being catapulted from class to activity to computer games to troubled neighborhoods can’t hurt. Gang members exchanged gunfire outside Anaheim High School two autumns ago, and weapons possession incidents have been high in the district.

Under such circumstances, a moment of silence could be as much about getting a grip as anything. School board member Katherine Smith is crusading to shore up the environment against drugs, violence and despair. She promoted uniforms for junior high school a few years ago, and last month quickly persuaded board colleagues to adopt the moment of silence, once the idea suddenly occurred to her. For her, this is about unity, not religion. She opposes the introduction of organized prayer, and says, “When any group has quiet time together, it has a binding effect.”

That all sounds good, and may prove to be so. Will others share her restraint, now and later with the passage of time? For those wishing to promote religion, any opening is potentially an advance on the slippery slope. This fall, there has been a push in several states in the deep South to have organized prayer at high school football games. This is with the backing of members of Congress, who ought to know better but are playing to the grandstand. Minority religious groups and non-believers always have been sensitive to this possibility of a dominant religious community imposing its will. This concern is at the heart of the separation of church and state, and what a moment of silence might lead to.

Nor is this a school district arriving on the threshold of silence with a blank slate. It was here that a fierce battle over sex education drew national attention in the 1960s, even before anyone was talking about “culture wars.” Recently the district’s penchant for heat over light erupted over a plan to bill foreign governments for the cost of educating immigrants. In a lapse of judgment, Harald G. Martin, the board president, last summer suggested that a student who was successful in suing a former teacher and the district for a relationship that began when she was 13 was herself partly to blame. The California Department of Health Services reports that this district has one of the highest teen birth rates in Orange County.

Smith is keenly attuned to the social environment and is convinced, like the Beltway combatants, that in symbols lie solutions. But the impulsiveness of the move to adopt silence gives pause. If her idea is going to be successful, this district, and others thinking along these lines, would do well to anchor any such experiment securely in the context of a broad policy for handling questions of religious expression on the schools. For all of Smith’s assurances that the moment of silence is non-religious, its obvious religious connotations are compelling enough to require that they be addressed in the proper framework. School boards come and go; a policy to withstand the convulsions of politics needs to be in place.

Some school districts around the country have recognized the need for a comprehensive approach to religious expression, covering such topics as character education, learning about religion, prayer by students and absence on religious holidays. The Des Moines public schools, for example, produced a blueprint a decade ago that was detailed but charted a broad objective: “In determining all course content and curriculum, care and sensitivity shall be shown for the religious or non-religious beliefs, attitudes and feelings of the students.”

Districts like Anaheim also should be aware of what they can do or permit legally without resorting to quick bromides, which can backfire into troubling constitutional questions, or make some students and teachers uncomfortable. For instance, students already can pray or observe silence any time they are not in engaged in school activities or instruction. Schools have latitude to teach values, as Anaheim does in its “Character Counts” program.

Once the moment of silence is observed, three questions likely will linger. Is it essential? Could it help? Will it work? The answers, in order, are: no; yes; and, it depends. In the meantime, as much as Anaheim considers silence a prescription, it also should take a deep breath.