Legally related religious challenges to public school materials, curricula, and instructional activities: The

Abstract

The increase and subsequent decline of challenges based on occult content coincided with a large number of challenges to Holt, Rinehart and Winston's Impressions reading series, the first whole language reading series and the most challenged set of curricular materials in American history. While Christian Right literature has tended to be critical of public school curriculum, Impressions was subject to more intense Christian Right opposition than any other textbook series. Overwhelmingly, individuals and groups that objected to Impressions did so after the series was adopted, and in almost all of these disputes the protestors sought to have the series removed. In the majority of cases, the protestors objected to the series on the grounds of its alleged occult content although other objections congruent with Christian Right issues were also raised. Five lawsuits were filed against Impressions; four of which went to trial. Two of these four cases involved alleged violations of the Establishment Clause and were ultimately decided in favor of the school districts by their respective federal courts of appeals.

Surveys of challenges to public school materials in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s indicated that only a small percentage of the total number of challenges were on explicitly religious grounds. Beginning in 1983, the American Library Association and People for the American Way began issuing annual reports listing challenges and noting increases in Christian Right involvement in challenges. Reflecting major themes in Christian Right literature related to public education, explicitly religious objections can be divided into four main issues of concern: evolution, secular humanism, denigration of religion and occult content. The patterns of reported challenges from 1983 to 1996 indicate that activism related to secular humanism and occult content was, in some respects, an artificial construct of Christian Right leaders--artificial in the sense that activism on these issues was a product of focused, persuasive literature distributed to members of the movement. The activists' perceptions that public school materials and curricula endanger both school children and American society were heightened by books and materials published and distributed by Christian Right organizations.