Reinterpreting Schempp: Is Teaching Spiritual Identity Development in the Public Schools Permissible?

Abstract

In the fall of 2004, I was teaching history and comparative religion at the Emma Willard School, an independent, all-girls, boarding high school. In October, the head of school appointed me to a committee examining student spirituality in a school-wide effort to promote personal development and academic excellence, the result of which was an extracurricular program called “Inner Journey.” The program provided “shared time and space for interested students to explore their life experiences as they relate to their individual belief development” (Dwyer, “Invitation” slide 5). Inner Journey consisted of ten weekly, small group meetings led by an adult facilitator. The students used journals, activities, and discussions to reflect on their lives and respond to existential questions such as “How did I get here?” “What is important to me as a human being?” and “What exists which is greater than myself?” (Dwyer, “Program” 1). In the final three weeks they developed and shared individual statements of belief. The underlying rationale for Inner Journey was to explore the critical role of adolescence in identity development drawing on research on the importance of spiritual development for adolescent girls. We also stressed the nondenominational and nonindoctrinational nature of the Inner Journey program, noting that the program would “allow small groups of interested students, of varying backgrounds and any or no religious affiliation, to contemplate and clarify that which make us human and moves us toward wholeness” (Inner Journey Task Force 2). Conspicuously absent from our considerations was any discussion of potential legal issues. Because I taught at an independent school, the law governing religion and public education in the United States did not apply. The committee definitely did not want to favor one religion over another or religion over non-religion, but we were free to focus on pedagogical rather than legal concerns in achieving this goal. Looking back at the inception of the Inner Journey program at Emma Willard, I remember thinking we could never implement it in a public school. Even though there were strong secular pedagogical justifications for the program, I assumed that it would run afoul of the United States Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, which held that devotional Bible reading in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In reaching its decision, the Court drew a distinction between impermissible BRENDAN W. RANDALL