Marty Lederman has a detailed, helpful post over at Balkinization, discussing the recent decision by a federal district judge in Iowa, "declaring unconstitutional the State of Iowa's establishment of a rehabilitation program operated in the state prison system by the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, a substidiary of Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries." (Marty's words). Marty writes, quoting the court:
In the court's words, "state funds were used intentionally to indoctrinate Iowa inmates [within the state prison], by a non-profit religious service provider preferred by the state in its selection process, into a form of the Christian religion in the belief that the indoctrination, combined with the communal rehabilitation model, would be of some help in their rehabilitation." The funded program is faith-intensive, and fundamentally religious in nature: "The overtly religious atmosphere of the InnerChange program is not simply an overlay or a secondary effect of the program—it is the program. There are no separate educational and religious functions in the InnerChange program as there were in Agostini . . . . Here, every activity—worship services, revivals, community meetings, daily devotionals—is organized and developed by the InnerChange program and is designed to transform an individual spiritually. Even the otherwise traditional rehabilitation classes themselves . . . have been turned into classes intended to indoctrinate inmates into the Christian faith."
Now, both the trial-court judge, and Marty in his post, make extensive use of the term "indoctrination." I wonder, what exactly is this word intended to communicate? What does it communicate, about the motives and goals of the teachers participating in the InnerChange program, about the nature of religious belief and transformation, about courts' understanding of what religion is, and about the disposition and goals of the participating inmates?
My own view is that the Court in the late 1960s and early 1970s made use of "indoctrination" (and "sectarian") in an unfortunate way, that owed too much to Paul Blanshard- and Hugo Black-style anti-Catholicism (i.e., "our public schools educate children, and promote unity; the Catholic schools indoctrinate, and are divisive", etc., etc.). To be clear, it is obvious that neither Marty nor the trial judge in Iowa intend this meaning. Still, the question remains: What is "indoctrination" and what is (or should be) the term's constitutional significance?
What markers distinguish "indoctrination" from "conveying claims about the world that, the speaker hopes, will appeal to the hearer's reason and, perhaps, transform his or her thinking about the world"? Is there a distinction between "teaching about religion" and "indoctrination"? Coming at the matter in another way, in what sense is what was happening in the InnerChange program -- which aims, in a comprehensive way, to "transform an individual spiritually" -- "indoctrination"? Notice that the court distinguishes explicitly between "educational" and "religious" functions, stating that "every activity" of InnerChange is, again, "designed to transform an individual spiritually." I would have thought, though, that the line between "education" and "transform[ation]" was not so clear.
Now, none of this is to dispute the court's or Marty's conclusion that, given the relevant doctrines, texts, and precedents, the trial judge was correct in invalidating the InnerChange program. I can think of many reasons why reasonable people of good will, including those who might well believe that religious transformation would be good for inmates and for "society", might nonetheless conclude that this program goes too far. I'm not sure, though, how much work the word "indoctrination" should do in guiding us to this conclusion.
