A Reagan Administration proposal to require family-planning clinics that receive federal funds to notify parents when the clinics prescribe contraceptives for minor children has been rebuffed for the second time by a federal district judge.
In a case brought by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other organizations representing the federally funded clinics, Judge Thomas A. Flannery of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia temporarily enjoined the Department of Health and Human Services from implementing its parental-notification rule.
Judge Flannery said the rule violated the spirit and the letter of the law authorizing federal funds for family-planning services.
A federal district judge in New York City last month reached the same conclusion in issuing a preliminary injunction in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union. (See Education Week, Feb. 23.)
The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to find out why many New Jersey state legislators voted in favor of a law for a mandatory “moment of silence” in the public schools. But lawyers for the legislature are trying to stop the organization.
The aclu, which is challenging in U.S. District Court the law that was passed over Gov. Thomas H. Kean’s veto last fall, sent lists of questions to 54 current and former legislators. The organization plans to use the information in court.
But Lawrence T. Marinari, the lawyer for the legislature, said the lawmaking process is a “privileged area of the law” and members should not be required to tell the motivation behind their votes.
“I have no objection to proper questioning, but not for motivational questions,” Mr. Marinari said. “Questioning of motivation hasn’t been permitted since 1776.”
The National Education Asso-ciation’s Albuquerque affiliate has postponed its plan to try to regain its role as collective-bargaining agent for the city’s 4,500 teachers until next school year. (See Education Week, Dec. 15, 1982.)
Mickey Ibarra, a New Mexico-nea offical assigned to the city, said the union will not call a representation vote this spring, as originally planned, because it plans instead to focus its efforts on “prying as much [school aid] out of the state legislature as possible.” The state pays 95 percent of the cost of local education in New Mexico.
Jewel L. Hall, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, which became the bargaining agent in 1979 after 40 years of nea representation, said the challenge was postponed for a different reason.
“They did a survey of the city’s teachers and found that their credibility is minus zero,” she said.
The aft affiliate has about 2,400 members, compared to the nea group’s 250 members, Ms. Hall said.
A bill requiring a minute of silence at the beginning of each school day has passed in the Tennessee Senate and is expected to come before the House this week.
A Tennessee law requiring one minute of silence for “meditation or prayer or personal beliefs” was declared unconstitutional by a federal judge last October. But the new bill does not mention prayer.
“Not mentioning prayer is one thing we emphasized,” said State Senator Frank P. Lashlee, vice-chairman of the Senate education committee and sponsor of the bill.
David Bolhuis, a high-school biology teacher in Hudsonville, Mich., has not been named Michigan’s High School Science Teacher of the Year, as has been reported. (See Education Week, Feb. 23, 1983.)
However, Mr. Bolhuis was among the finalists in the competition as of late last week.
