Free Will, Religious Liberty, and a Partial Defense of the French Approach to Religious Expression in Public Schools

This Address uses the recent controversy over the French religious paraphernalia law and the contrasting American cases to discuss the nature of religious liberty and to consider how government policies should reflect the complicated relationship between individual spiritual freedom and communal religious identity. These issues are especially acute in the context of public education, in which issues of religious liberty are deeply embedded in the growing conflict between devout religious practitioners and the system of secular education in the public schools. In short, the main question addressed in this Address is, “How does the government best foster a tradition of spiritual and intellectual liberty among its young citizens?” Does the government foster religious liberty best by deferring to the dictates of religious communities, or is the cause of religious liberty better served by government actions that affirmatively seek to provide space for young citizens to choose their own religious paths independent of the religious community in which they live or were raised? The French and American systems answer this question very differently.