RDV: (Un)Constitutional Educational Indoctrination

This year marks the centennial of Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), a landmark decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a compulsory public school education law and established the rights of parents to direct their children’s education. The important question in Pierce’s wake is when compulsory education is unconstitutional state “indoctrination.” This talk asks whether, one hundred years later, it is possible that we still do not have an answer. Pierce drew the line at a state compelling public-school attendance. The Court granted states a license to control the subjects all students would be required to study, for how long, and at what level. In other words, the Court allowed states to create and control a statewide curriculum. Only, it prohibited states from mandating a particular form of education, even while allowing states to regulate its content. The talk explores the extent to which it can be said that essentially every state law pertaining to the education of children is indoctrinating in some sense.

About the speaker

Zalman Rothschild is Assistant Professor of Law and Horn Family Distinguished Research Scholar in Law and Religion at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Professor Rothschild holds a JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a PhD in Religion from New York University. Previously, he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School, a law clerk to Judge Jane Roth on the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss. During his time in practice, Professor Rothschild was recognized by The American Lawyer in its “Litigator of the Week” profile and received the “On the Rise—Top 40 Young Lawyer” award from the American Bar Association.

Professor Rothschild’s research focuses on the First Amendment, anti-discrimination law, and law and religion. His scholarship has or will appear in Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, and Georgetown Law Journal, among other places, and has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books. His popular writing has appeared in The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. In 2023, the Law and Religion Section of the Association of American Law Schools awarded Professor Rothschild the Harold Berman Award for Excellence in Scholarship.

How to participate: At Bergen Global, Jekteviksbakken 31 or via the Zoom link below. 

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