"therapeutics,"—the psychiatrists, sociologists, school counselors, etc.—can use their skills and theories to remake and control society.
Rieff has impressive credentials. He taught sociology
at the University of Chicago, Harvard and the Univer-
sity of California at Berkeley. From 1961 to 1964 he
served as the chief consultant to the Planning Depart-
ment of the National Council of Churches, Rieff wrote
that "Christian culture has been displaced" and the
book sets forth his dream for reorganizing society using
the "therapeutic principles."
What Are Schools Doing To Children Morally ? 33 He has been at all the right—or "wrong" places. In the introduction to his book, Rieff quotes Bronislaw Malinowski who in his book, Culture as a Determinant Behavior, said:
That we are passing through a cultural crisis of unprecedented magnitude nobody doubts...I can see only one way out...the establishment of a scientific control of human affairs.
This is a Marxist premise—the remaking of man through the application of "science" (falsely so-called).
Wilhelm Reich, on whom Rieff drew heavily, was a Bolshevik and a psychiatrist. Rieff says Reich left the organized Communist movement reluctantly, believ- ing that by failing to convert Lenin's political revolution into the first moral revolution fought on scientific prin- ciples, the Marxists defeated themselves.
What remedy (or weapon) did Philip Rieff see for reorganizing society? Drawing on Reich, he wrote:
Set into the context of Reich's attack on the family as the nucleus of all authoritative institutions, his repeated calls for a do-it-yourself adolescent sex education acquires political significance. Sex education becomes the main weapon in an ideological war against the family; its aim was to divest the parents of their moral authority.
This is an amazing admission. It confirms the con- cerns and suspicions of many who have battled school- room sex education since the 1960s. Rieff concludes that for Reich...
...all hope rests with the possibility of creating revolutionary children...Because Marx theorized in terms of an adult world, for Reich, he could not possibly be subversive enough. With John Dewey, Wilhelm Reich is one of the great theorists of the child as the agent of social change...though publicly labeled an eccentric, Reich was anything but a fool.
Rieff's book, promoting Reich's theories, was widely available to high school guidance counselors in
1967-68. Those who read it should have known the far-reach- ing anti-family implications of the sex education programs even while they were being introduced in the 1960s.
Parents concerned about the appropriateness of school sex education have few rights as many examples show:
In a Massachusetts case, parents sued to protest the policy of Falmouth High School, which placed condom vending machines in school restrooms. Condoms were thereby made available to students without parental consent. The U.S.
Supreme Court refused to overturn a Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling which allowed the policy.
In Texas, Federal District Judge Melinda Harmon, perhaps emboldened by the Supreme Court's decision, ruled that...
....parents give up their rights when they drop children off at public school.
She made that determination after parents sued the school district when their son was questioned and made to strip naked by a female Texas Children's Protective Services worker. The CPS worker was looking for signs of paddling the boy's parents had allegedly ad- ministered.
Pennsylvania parents have also been told, "You have no rights!" As the state moved full scale into providing health services through school-based clinics, a 1996 incident (discussed fully in Chapter 9) provoked head- lines nationally. Over 50 sixth grade girls at J.T, Lam- bert Intermediate School in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania were forced to disrobe and submit to genital exams. Katie Tucker, a mother, told the Washington Times that when the embarrassed dis- robed girls learned that the doctor would force them to submit to "spread-eagled" genital exams...
What Are Schools Doing To Children Morally? 35 ...they were scared. They were crying and trying to run out the door, but one of the nurses blocked the door so they couldn't leave. My daughter told the other nurse that "My mother wouldn't like this. I want to call her." And they said, "No."
My daughter said, "I don't want this test done." And the nurse said, "Too bad."
Parents are finding increasingly that they have no tights. The doctor, Ramlah Vahanvaty, when asked if some of the girls were crying said, "I don't remember."
The Pocono Record in its report added that later the doctor said:
Even a parent doesn't have the right to say what's appropriate for a physician to do when they're doing an exam.
Pennsylvania Family Institute's research director, To m Shah een, c o mm ented that with Pres iden t Clinton's push for national Goals 2000 standards, in- cluding increased in-school medical treatment for all children, parents in Pennsylvania and beyond might expect more incidents resembling the one at J.T. Lam-
bert. (Chapter 9 will examine how schools in many states have moved into providing health services in school-based clinics without legislative approval.)
Other signs that all is not well in schools across America were spotlighted in a column by Thomas Sowell published in the Detroit News in 1990. Sowell is one of the few national educators and columnists who consistently speaks out on weird and tragic occurrences in schools: He wrote:
A 1990 ABC-TV program 20-20 showed, among other things, high school students being taken to a morgue to touch dead bodies. Was this just some kooky teacher's idea? Not at all.
This is part of a whole nationwide movement. Your local high school may have it-—even if parents don't know about it.25
Cali forn ia legisl ative files includ ed report s o n children in a first grade "death ed" class being required