Private Interests, Public Necessity: Responding to Sexism in Christian Schools

Abstract

This synthetic review aims to unite a seemingly disjoint collection of studies over the past 3 decades around their shared examination of sexism in an often overlooked U.S. population, namely girls attending private Christian schools. This undertaking reveals substantial harms that I categorize as those of immediacy and potentiality, which are occurring behind the protective wall separating church and state. Contra the majority of philosophers of education and researchers in this area, these studies lead me to argue that the state has the obligation and legal ability to intervene in this private domain. Notably, this study begins to flesh out a notion of educational harm that may be robust enough for state policy making and legal action in private schools. Based on a legalized understanding of sexist harm, I conclude with a detailed analysis of Constitutional provisions and court decisions relative to state intervention and freedom of religious practice.

Notes

¹Other types of non-Christian religious schools were excluded because of difficulty with comparing policies and curriculum based on scriptural interpretations that often vary and conflict across different religions (to a much greater extent than they do between different denominations of Christianity). Furthermore, because of my interest in U.S. legal implications, I chose to focus on the religion that 76.5% of the U.S. population claims to uphold, namely Christianity (Adherents 2001).

²I do not wish to censor the reading of such passages, an antipluralistic act that could deny these people access to the very source that defines the good life for them. Rather, I want to restrict the sexist interpretations and teachings that may stem from them and adversely affect students in settings in which students, by their will, cannot escape.

³It is of interest to note that the message of gender inferiority is frequently hegemonically internalized when discrimination is occurring among the members of a relatively small, closed community. This differs from messages of inferiority, such as racial discrimination, which may be fostered toward a group outside of the community. Although both are harmful, the first is more problematic for members in the community insofar as it is an internal discrimination that cannot be escaped. Although racial discrimination, on the other hand, is external, the painful experience of which is most likely not felt by members inside the community.

Certainly I want to avoid suggesting that women who are mothers or helpers are somehow of less value than women who occupy other roles. Instead, I am arguing that opportunities other than those of motherhood and assistants should be open to female students as viable and respectable roles to fill. I am aware, however, that a cultural norm of women merely being mothers or helpers could develop once other opportunities are extended. I hope that this would not be the case; some would say it already is in secular society.

⁵The Wellesley College Center for Research on Women (1992) found that most children of age 6 or 7 have internalized gender stereotypes. Without exposure to role-shattering accounts, stereotypes only become more rigid as children mature.

⁶For more on this line of thought, see Sandel (1990) in Hunter and Guinness (1990).

⁷Note the 1976 State v. Whisner case in Ohio, which found that religious schools must be able to maintain their distinctive character.

⁸Massachusetts, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have such requirements (Bainton 1983, 123).

⁹Certainly Americans know that their national government has been reluctant to take even a firm secular stance on gender equality, as the Equal Rights Amendment has yet to be ratified after decades of sitting on Capitol Hill.