Religious exemption linked to anti-integration efforts

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The current religious exemption law has its roots in anti-integration efforts

Date published: 4/16/2006

The precursor to today's religious exemption statute dates back to 1956, when Massive Resistance laws were enacted by the Virginia General Assembly in order to circumvent integration of the state's public schools.

Virginia's U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr. promoted Massive Resistance, as well as the Southern Manifesto, a document signed by more than 100 Southern officeholders who opposed integrated schools.

On Sept. 29, 1956, the General Assembly approved paying educational grants to parents who objected to having their children sent to integrated schools. The grants could be used to send the children to nonsectarian private schools. The statute read in part:

"Such payments shall be paid to parents, guardians or other persons having custody of children who have been assigned to or are in attendance at public schools wherein both white and colored children are enrolled; provided the parents, guardians or other persons having custody of such children shall make an affidavit to the local school board that they object to the assignment of such children to or their attendance at any school wherein both white and colored children are enrolled."

Pupil placement boards also came out of Massive Resistance. These boards had the authority to send individual students to specific schools. Another law cut state funds for--and effectively closed--schools attempting to integrate.

In January 1959, federal courts found the state's anti-integration laws illegal. In a countermeasure, the General Assembly met in a special session and repealed the compulsory attendance law, for the first time in history. Many local legislators, including representatives from Stafford, Caroline and Louisa counties, were fiercely opposed to integration, forming a segregationist block.

When the session came to an end in April, the compulsory attendance law was reinstated, but amended. An April 18, 1959, Free Lance-Star article said:

"As amended, the compulsory attendance bill would allow any parent to withdraw his child from school simply attesting that he conscientiously objects to the child being in school."

For two decades, parents who wanted to legally home-school could do so only in one of two ways: claim to be conscientiously opposed to compulsory attendance or possess a state-approved teaching license.

In 1976, legislators narrowed the exemption statute. Parents had to be religiously opposed to the compulsory attendance law. Conscientious objectors without purely religious motivations were no longer exempt.

The parents' beliefs now had to be "bona fide and religious"--not merely personal, moral, philosophical or social in nature.

Date published: 4/16/2006