Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of
Education and Information Studies, UCLA
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State regulation of
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’79: Rudasill in Kentucky, page 1
I thought much action
in the 1970s and 1980s against parents who violated the educational
prescriptions of the state reflected shallow understanding of the parents and
of the preparation for adulthood that produces good citizens. I assisted William
Ball, of Ball & Skelly in Harrisburg, PA, in seven cases on that topic,
defending people who could scarcely pay his expenses. His career as “a
superb attorney and a compassionate man,” and eventually as the lead
attorney in ten cases before the U. S Supreme Court, is outlined in the
aforementioned book by Shawn Peters.
Peters does not mention that Ball was on President Reagan’s
short list for appointment as Supreme Court justice. A truly outstanding human being, Ball
died in 1999. I dedicate the
present discussion to his memory.
I am attempting to get a photograph (with permission to use it here)
from his law firm or family. Since the Whisner and
Rudasill cases are similar, I discuss Whisner only in passing here. Whisner (351 N.E. 2d 750, 1976), more widely cited than Rudasill, is sometimes called the high-water mark
of court decisions defending private schools, and its circumstances probably
inflicted more pain on people of conscience than did circumstances in
Rudasill, but Whisner, unlike Rudasill (in my opinion), is thoroughly
discussed elsewhere—in James Carper’s article in Journal of
Church and State 26 (1984):
281-302), for example. A 1977 book by Alan N. Grover on Whisner, titled Ohio’s
Trojan Horse (published by Bob Jones University
Press), though limited as legal analysis, communicates vividly the distress
of parents who were trying to abide by their religious convictions. When state attorneys in
Rudasill examined Yoder and Whisner, they learned how assaults on parental
choice were beaten back. Perhaps worried for this reason, they appointed, as
top prosecutor in Kentucky State Bd. v. Rudasill (589 S. W. 2d 877), Bert T. Combs, a former Kentucky governor and a
partner in one of the state’s most influential law firms. In a manner reminiscent of Yoder and
Whisner, parents in Rudasill had been harassed and hounded to court, not for
failing to prepare their children for responsible adulthood, but for doing so
in a manner state officials did not like.
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Copyright © 2004 Donald Erickson Published with the assistance of IEW Systems |
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