APRIL 2024 | Volume 2 | Number 4
IIn this edition of the ACCS Legal Update, we will discuss a disturbing “conspiracy,” if you will, against homeschooling which should be kept on the radar of every Christian educator (homeschooler or not).
Harvard Law Professor vs. Homeschooling
Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet’s controversial paper “Homeschooling: Parent Rights Absolutism vs. Child Rights to Education & Protection,” originally published by the Arizona Law Review, has come back into the public eye in recent weeks. The 80-page “working paper” indicated the need for a “presumptive ban” on homeschooling due to a number of concerns. In Bartholet’s own words:
“Many homeschool precisely because they want to isolate their children from ideas and values central to our democracy. Many promote racial segregation and female subservience. Many question science. Many are determined to keep their children from exposure to views that might enable autonomous choice about their future lives. Abusive parents can keep their children at home free from the risk that teachers will report them to child protection services. Some homeschool precisely for this reason. This article calls for a radical transformation in the homeschooling regime, and a related rethinking of child rights and reframing of constitutional doctrine. It recommends a presumptive ban on homeschooling, with the burden on parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool.”
While numerous objections to Bartholet’s claims immediately come to mind, we must limit ourselves to a select few. To begin with, as some have already noted, Bartholet’s paper reads as a mere op-ed screed based upon personal opinion and anecdotal strawmen. The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) published an excellent response by Dr. Brian Ray (President of the National Home Education Research Institute), which focused on the flaws in Bartholet’s methodology, indicating major problems with peer review, cited studies, and misrepresentation of studies which contradict her claims. Ray observes, “Upon reviewing Professor Bartholet’s article, we conclude that it suffers from contradictions, factual errors, statements of stereotyping, and a failure seriously to consider that the alternative to homeschooling—public schooling—shares the problems that she attributes to home education.”
Yet, perhaps most concerning is the fact that Bartholet’s views include a call to legislative action. Her paper was published, in its entirety, by Arizona Law Review and as an interview by The Harvard Gazette. In the Harvard interview, she claimed that she would not necessarily want to permanently ban all homeschooling. Parents should, however, be required to provide sufficient justification for why they want to homeschool, and prove that they possess sufficient knowledge and skill to teach their children. She then goes further: “And for parents granted permission to homeschool, I would still require that their kids participate in at least some school courses and extracurricular activities so they get exposure to a set of alternative values and experiences.”
Though Bartholet’s paper was published over three years ago, and it has not resulted in her desired legislative action, every Christian educator (homeschooling or not) should keep it in mind. Since the initial publishing of her paper in 2019, Bartholet (as previously noted) was published in The Harvard Gazette (2020), presented her ideas at a homeschooling conference in 2021, and wrote an essay on homeschooling titled Exploring Norms and Family Laws across the Globe in 2022. In other words, her message is still being published, and her voice is still being heard.
And while Bartholet loudly criticizes the “homeschool lobby,” attacks like hers show just how necessary their voice may be. Additionally, while Bartholet has yet to openly attack Christian schooling, it is easy to see that, should her argument prevail over homeschooling, it could just as easily be applied to any form of Christian schooling.
- Keep abreast to the claims and calls to action among the intelligentsia. As Francis Schaeffer noted in his “Line of Despair,” even the strangest ideas can take root in a culture over time.
- Seek to cultivate friendship and strong connections with Christian educators outside of your school or educational context. When a culture is outspokenly hostile to Christianity, Christians need all the friends they can get.
Grace & Peace,
Brian Phillips, Ed.D.
If you are in search of legal advice for you or your school, please consider the following resources: Brotherhood Mutual and Alliance Defending Freedom
Brian Phillips is the pastor of Holy Trinity Reformed Church (CREC – Concord, NC), teaches Rhetoric at Oaks Classical Christian Academy (Albemarle, NC), and is Board Vice Chairman for New Aberdeen College. Brian has also served as the Director of Consulting for The Circe Institute, Head of Upper School at Covenant Classical School (Concord, NC), and was an adjunct faculty member of Belmont Abbey College.
Dr. Phillips has an M.A. in Theological Studies, an M.A. in Classical Studies, an Ed.D. in Classical Education, and completed paralegal training at Duke University. He is also the author/editor of several books, including Sunday Mornings: An Introduction to Biblical Worship and the Canon Classics Guides to Dante’s Inferno and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Brian and his wife, Shannon, live in North Carolina with their four children and their German Shepherd, Ajax the Great.