These pictures are from public school classrooms. Displays like these are common, even in elementary school classrooms. The NEA (teachers union) has come out strongly in support of pride flags in classrooms. Do these flag displays violate the First Amendment (free speech and free exercise) because they "coerce" impressionable students to think about them and perhaps to believe their messages? Some teachers go beyond mere displays and actually encourage elementary students to join them in a "pride march" around the school!
If a Christian teacher displayed a Nativity Scene in her classroom during December, would it violate the incorporated Establishment Clause because it "coerces" her students to believe the message of a birth of a Savior? Suppose she posted a Ten Commandments display in her classroom?
I enjoyed our class discussion on soft coercion. Indeed, impressionable children are a captive audience for all kinds of controversial ideological ideas in public schools. Is there any reason why it is okay to "coerce" students to accept controversial, secular ideas, but not religious ideas? Or does mutual tolerance and pluralism welcome all ideas in the public schools, so long as there is no real ("do this or else") coercion?
By the way, universal school choice funding would cure all of these problems, because dissenters could exit the public schools and take their educational funding with them.
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