America's ability to educate its citizens about the principles of the founding fathers has been hindered by opinions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, said Associate Justice Antonin Scalia (C'57).
At the forefront are decisions related to the religion clauses of the First Amendment, Scalia said during a lecture in Gaston Hall on Oct. 19.
"At best the court has shown great hostility towards the founders' vision of religion as a way to foster civic virtue," he said, "and at worst it has actively obstructed the fulfillment of that vision."
Known as one of the court's more outspoken justices, Scalia gave the inaugural lecture of the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy, sponsored by the university's government department. The forum seeks to advance the study of America's founding principles and their roots in the Western philosophical and religious traditions, said director Patrick Deneen, the Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair of Hellenic Studies.
Scalia's address focused on the founders' views of civic education, namely that the role of discipline in a virtuous society, the teaching of religious values, and focus on the history and culture of America, not just Europe.
The founders' considered discipline to be a necessary part of education, he said, because it taught respect for the rule of law.
"Swift and effective punishment of even a non-physical sort, has been all but banished from today's public school classrooms," he said. This resulted from the court's application of due process to school affairs and the increasing role of litigation in society.
He also mentioned several other court rulings, including one that permits federal review when a school removes a book from its library holdings because of objections to the book's content, and another ruling stating that student-initiated prayers at a high school football game violated the First Amendement.
Georgetown students attending the lecture had questions not only about Scalia’s views on education, but on hot topics such as the sale of medicinal marijuana, campaign finance reform and censorship of high school newspapers.
One student asked whether Scalia believed the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore was an example of judicial activism. In its 7-2 ruling, the court effectively halted the recount of presidential ballots in Florida, resulting in the nomination of George W. Bush as president.
"My first response to that question always is, it's six years ago. Get over it!" Scalia said. He then explained that "It surely is not activist to apply the text of the Constitution, which is what the court did."
Another student asked for Scalia's thoughts on providing television coverage of Supreme Court proceedings, similar to broadcasts of Congressional sessions.
"That's a fair question for someone who has sounded off the way I have," Scalia said. "If I thought that cameras in the Supreme Court would really educate the people, I would be all for it. But I think it would miseducate and misinform."
Most of the time the court is dealing with "bankruptcy code, the internal revenue code, [the labor law] ERISA -- stuff only a lawyer would love. Nobody's going to be watching that gavel-to-gavel except a few C-SPAN junkies," he said.
"For every one of them, there will be 100,000 people who will see maybe 15 second take-out on the network news, which I guarantee you will be uncharacteristic of what the Supreme Court does."
