By Linda P. Campbell
lcampbell@star-telegram.com
It's terribly touching that state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican from Brenham, is so concerned about government intrusion that she doesn't want public school students forced to wear microchipped ID cards that would show where they are for purposes of taking attendance and making sure they're safe in an emergency.
This would be the same Kolkhorst who has no problem with the state barging into the private lives and choices of women exercising their constitutionally protected right to end a pregnancy. She was one of five main authors of Texas' sonogram law, whose clear purpose is to supplant free will and deter abortions.
Now, you can dislike abortion mightily but still see almost comical hypocrisy surrounding which rights seem to be more valued here.
But let's leave sonograms and abortion for another time.
Instead, let's consider whether students have any constitutional protections against having to wear badges while on campus.
A dispute at the John Jay Science and Engineering Academy, a high school magnet program in San Antonio's Northside district, is bringing attention to Kolkhorst's repeated but unsuccessful attempts to restrict use of IDs containing radio frequency identification chips.
Northside is experimenting with the cards this year to boost daily attendance, which increases state funding: by locating students in the building, even if they aren't in their seats at roll time. More-accurate daily counts apparently can mean about $30 per person gained instead of lost.
It's easy to see the safety aspects, too, in tracking students in case of campus-wide emergencies. Most schools long ago started requiring adult staffers and visitors to wear IDs to prevent strangers from wandering where they don't belong.
A Jay student named Andrea Hernandez and her father, Steve, say in a lawsuit that the requirement "substantially burdens" her religious beliefs.
The suit, which identifies Andrea as "Christian" but doesn't specify a denomination, refers to the biblical book of Revelation, which they say indicates that "an individual's acceptance of a certain code, identified with his or her person, as a pass conferring certain privileges from a secular ruling authority, is a form of idolatry or submission to a false god."
I don't want to question the sincerity of anyone's religious beliefs, but I'm left wondering.
School officials agreed to let Andrea wear a badge without a chip, but she still objected, saying that would signal she agreed with the pilot project. She won't wear the new ID but continues to carry her old one, according to the suit. Is this a distinction without a difference?
Along those lines, if any "code" that confers "privileges from a secular authority" amounts to idolatry, doesn't that mean the Hernandezes' religious beliefs would require them to eschew Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, bank card numbers and virtually any form of government-benefit ID indicator? Are they doing that?
Their suit, crafted by lawyers from the Rutherford Institute, based in Charlottesville, Va., says the district violated Andrea's rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Act, a 1999 law that says a state government agency can't "substantially burden a person's free exercise of religion" unless it's the "least restrictive means" of furthering "a compelling government interest."
She also claims that school officials violated her free-speech rights by stopping her from handing out fliers about her objections outside class. They might have been wrong on that one.
But that doesn't mean the religious freedom claim wins.
I'm no fan of heavy authoritarianism in a school setting. But it's not abundantly clear that having to wear an ID, microchipped or not, constitutes a "substantial burden" on religion, or that whatever burden it might impose outweighs the school district's interests.
And does complying with a school rule really signify endorsement of the policy behind it?
Insert roaring student laughter here.
Linda P. Campbell is a Star-Telegram editorial writer.817-390-7867Twitter: @LindaPCampbell
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