Is it legal to force a atheist student to read a prayer in a Church of England UK academy? At my school, which is a Church of England academy, instead of assemblies, we do "Collective Worship" (although everyone still calls them assemblies). With whole-school assemblies, each class takes turns to pick a few students to read Christian prayers to the whole school. However, in my class, nobody has volunteered, so our teacher is threatening to pick names out of a hat. We (myself and a few other friends who agreed) argue that we cannot be forced to preach the existence of God when we are atheist, as that could violate freedom of speech or a law on religion. Our main points are that we would begin with "Dear Lord," implying that we believe in a God, then end with "Amen," which translates to "I agree/believe," which we don't. Is forcing an atheist student to read a Christian prayer illegal or prohibited in any way? Would Article 14 of the UNCRC apply?
Although an academy is state-funded, it is not the government, so limitations on what a government is allowed to do are not applicable, and anyway there is no First Amendment separation of church and state in the UK. I presume your school has a formal faith designation, which means that it is not subject to Section 85 of the Equality Act 2010, which might maybe be a path for escaping the requirement. The "collective worship" requirement is mandated by the government under Section 70 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which is extended to academy schools by the funding agreements. The requirement is that "each pupil in attendance at a community, foundation or voluntary school shall on each school day take part in an act of collective worship". Section 71 provides an exception: If the parent of a pupil at a community, foundation or voluntary school requests that he may be wholly or partly excused from receiving religious education given in the school in accordance with the school’s basic curriculum, from attendance at religious worship in the school, or both from receiving such education and from such attendance, the pupil shall be so excused until the request is withdrawn. Since a religious academy is not subject to the national curriculum, deviation from whatever the religious requirements are stated in that curriculum is allowed.
There's nothing that makes it illegal to ask others to give you money to donate to a third party. But if you want to say you're fundraising on behalf of another organization, obviously you need its permission. And if you want contributions to be considered charitable for tax purposes, and you want to make sure you don't wind up paying taxes on contributions "sent to" you but then passed on, then you may need to start worrying about a separate entity. It would be more straightforward to offer to create, host and administer the website for the church, with it receiving the contributions directly.
Are there actual laws written, or de facto situations (e.g. let's say another law specifies that a child can't be physically forced to go anywhere without causing abuse) where the child can refuse to attend? Are there "tiers" to the age; Is it true that a temper tantrum of a 5 year old would be seen as such, but the refusal of a 17 year would be legally accepted? This is a hard question to answer that doesn't have a neat resolution. Very little pertaining to the authority of a parent over a child is codified in statutory law and there is not a clear cut age at which a child has "freedom of conscience" vis-a-vis a parent. Most of the law related to children concerns allocation of parenting time and parental decision making between divorced, separated or unmarried parents; abuse and neglect; and juvenile delinquency. There is also usually a snippet of criminal law stating that certain kinds of uses of force to discipline children do not constitute crimes. But, part of why it doesn't come up very much is that older children are usually socialized in a manner that causes them to show a certain amount of respect for the wishes of their parents. It also doesn't come up much for children who aren't in their late teens, because the complete economic dependence of children on their parents or guardians gives the parents considerable power of their children that doesn't require the exercise of physical force. Also, it is quite dependent upon how the issue presents itself. No law enforcement agency is going to aid a parent in forcibly dragging a kid to church against their will. But, no social services agency is going to remove a kid from a home because his birthday party will be cancelled if he doesn't go to the church of his parents' choice the Sunday before his birthday. There are also some subtle but important distinctions between states on the issue of emancipation. In Colorado, emancipation is a statement about the empirical reality. If a child is self-supporting and lives apart from parents or guardians then the child is an emancipated minor. It is not a status granted by a court, it is a status acknowledged by courts when evaluating other issues. In California, a child is not emancipated unless a court grants a child that status and a child who is de facto emancipated without the leave of a court is guilty of a "status offense" (the New York State term for someone in this state is PINS for "person in need of supervision"). Basically, if a parent can force a child to go to church by means that don't constitute abuse or neglect and don't exceed the level of force authorize for child discipline in the criminal code, then they can do it, and if they can't manage that, then they can't do it. Many states have a "status offense" that allows government intervention with the cooperation of a parent or guardian in cases where an "uncontrollable" child is defiant and simply will not give any heed to the parent or guardian's instructions. In practice, the older a child is, the less likely someone viewing a parent's conduct forcing a child to do something is to be viewed as acceptable or legally justified. The legal rights of children in a school setting are also age dependent under the case law, although not always in a really well defined way. Controls on student expression that would be uncontroversial for elementary school students may be looked upon by the law with disfavor for high school students and clearly prohibited for adults. Perhaps one useful way to conceptualize it is that trying to make a child attend a particular kind of religious service is not considered an improper purposes for a parent of any minor to utilize the resources available to the parent to do so, but the range of resources available to a parent with regard to an adult child is much narrower.
Is this interpretation correct? YES Encounters such as this should normally fall within the non-statutory stop &amp; account which covers police-initiated conversations with members of the public to ask general questions about their activities when there are no reasonable grounds to suspect an offence. The terminology varies from Force to Force, but can be summarised as: What are you doing? Why are you in the area? Where are you going? What are you carrying? There is no legal requirement or obligation to answer any of these questions, and the police cannot lawfully detain anyone to ask them - unlike the statutory powers under Stop &amp; Search and Arrest covered by the OP.
34 CFR Subpart D covers this topic ("Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?"). This includes The disclosure is to other school officials, including teachers, within the agency or institution whom the agency or institution has determined to have legitimate educational interests so that raises the question of whether there is a legitimate educational interest. Additionally, the question is raised as to the status of an SRO (they are not teachers). Disclosure is allowed to A contractor, consultant, volunteer, or other party to whom an agency or institution has outsourced institutional services or functions may be considered a school official under this paragraph provided... the conditions being that the person Performs an institutional service or function for which the agency or institution would otherwise use employees; Is under the direct control of the agency or institution with respect to the use and maintenance of education records; and Is subject to the requirements of §99.33(a) governing the use and redisclosure of personally identifiable information from education records I would take this model memorandum as the most likely agreement, though your district may have a totally different memo where SROs are purely security guards. An SRO is to advance the program objective which include "Education of children regarding the role of laws, courts, and Police in society", which is the hook into "legitimate educational interest". This nothwitstanding the part that says that they "are police officers and not school teachers, school administrators, nor school counselors. The officers will assist teachers with classroom presentations on relative topics when requested and able" (there is no principle that only teachers, administrators, or counselors can have a legitimate educational interest). This model memo does not say anything that indicates that the conditions "Is under the direct control" and "Is subject to the requirements of §99.33(a)" are true, but those conditions could be satisfied external to the MOU. There are some additional exceptions of the "if required by law" type, such as a state law "adopted before November 19, 1974, if the allowed reporting or disclosure concerns the juvenile justice system and the system's ability to effectively serve the student whose records are released"; or, after that date, is "subject to the requirements of §99.38" which refers you to §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). If that is confusing, here are the two self-referring sections: §99.38(a) If reporting or disclosure allowed by State statute concerns the juvenile justice system and the system's ability to effectively serve, prior to adjudication, the student whose records are released, an educational agency or institution may disclose education records under §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). §99.31(a)(5)(i)(B). The disclosure is to State and local officials or authorities to whom this information is specifically...Allowed to be reported or disclosed pursuant to State statute adopted after November 19, 1974, subject to the requirements of §99.38. So state law is one possibility; "legitimate educational interest" is a remote possiblity. Massachussetts law does include governmental third party disclosures: 603 CMR 23.07(4)(c) A school may release information regarding a student upon receipt of a request from the Department of Social Services, a probation officer, a justice of any court, or the Department of Youth Services under the provisions of M.G.L. c. 119, sections 51B, 57, 69 and 69A respectively. That does not directly apply to local police, but it is possible that a police officer is operating as a probation officer or an agent of the Department of Youth Services. Under paragraph (e), A school may disclose information regarding a student to appropriate parties in connection with a health or safety emergency if knowledge of the information is necessary to protect the health or safety of the student or other individuals. This includes, but is not limited to, disclosures to the local police department Mass. law allows the possibility of treating a police officer as "authorized school personnel" if they are "providing services to the student under an agreement between the school committee and a service provider, and who are working directly with the student in an administrative, teaching counseling, and/or diagnostic capacity" – which is not completely out of the question but is a bit of a stretch (especially in the context of a blanket statement "we share records", not "we may share yours, if you get special counseling"). Tne law also says "Any such personnel who are not employed directly by the school committee shall have access only to the student record information that is required for them to perform their duties", so sharing of all records would not be allowed.
No it is not illegal A school can ban or block online content from its own computers or connections as its administrators or teachers think proper, and does not need any law that authorizes or requires them to do so. The US Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires schools and libraries which receive discounts for Internet access or internal connections through the E-rate program to adopt an &quot;Internet safety policy&quot; This must include measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors. The policy also &quot;must include monitoring the online activities of minors&quot; and must address several other issues, including &quot;access by minors to inappropriate matter&quot;. It does not however, require tracking of usage by specific individuals. But the school may, if it chooses, adopt a policy broader than the requirements of CIPA, which are a minimum standard. The school may block content thought to distract from school work, for example, or that the relevant school authorities think unhelpful or contrary to its goals. This is in no way required by CIPA (unless it is part of addressing the issues CIPA demands be addressed), but is also in no way prohibited, it is the school's choice. Institutions that adopt a CIPA Internet safety policy must &quot;provide reasonable notice and hold at least one public hearing or meeting to address the proposal.&quot; But there is no legal requirement for the school to accurately describe which of its policy items are in fact required by CIPA. The only penalty for failing to comply with these CIPA requirement is loss of the E-rate discounts. A school may choose not to comply and forgo the discounts. Knowingly providing obscene content to minors might well be in violation of other laws, however. In short, the school can block whatever it sees fit, for whatever reasons school authorities think proper, unless some other law or constitutional right prevents this. I do not know of any such law or right, although I am researching the matter further. There is not generally a constitutional right to unfiltered internet access in school, or indeed to any access in school at all.
There is ample reason to conclude that "non-commercial" would include a church, as well as advocating a political cause or candidate. The hard part of "personal". In the context of (Canadian) bankruptcy law, it can mean "non-business use"; in the context of "personal use property", it can be "A type of property that an individual does not use for business purposes or hold as an investment. In other words, property that an individual owns for personal enjoyment". US tax law takes "personal purposes" to refer to non-business purposes. But in the context of copyright (especially music downloading / copying), it is taken to refer to the use of or by an individual. Distributing free copies of a protected work does not get legally sanctioned due to the copying being non-commercial. The alternative term "private" is much clearer, in identifying "just you", but is probably avoided in this kind of context so as to avoid the wrong inference that you can only play Pokemon in the privacy of your own home. So the slightly less clear term "personal" is used instead of "private" especially in copyright-related contexts. "Personal" and "private" are not exactly the same, but when it's about use, I don't see any difference, and I think there is no question that use to attract to a church or political candidate is not "private", it is public. Since the license does not define "your own personal purposes" and there is not an existing crystal-clear definition of "personal purposes", the phrase could be given its "ordinary (plain) meaning". Of course, plain meaning has to give way to contractual intent, so we have to figure out what the parties intended. Except, you don't have a contract with Niantic, but still, plain meaning surely has some place in the law of licenses. At this point, in a lawsuit, both sides would hire an expert witness like a linguist or English teacher to make the case that a church or other non-commercial non-private use is / is not included in the meaning of "personal purpose". A silly argument could be made to the effect that if you personally have an interest in doing something then it is a personal purpose (if specifically commercial, it would be precluded by the term "noncommercial"). What makes this silly is that everybody does things for personal purposes (even acting in a way that benefits others, since you do so for the personal reason that you should do so), and thus "personal" would not mean anything. That is, "personal purposes" does not mean "whatever motivation or interest you personally have". You can also gain a certain understanding of what "personal purposes" means by looking at similar licenses. In the context of academic publishing, authors are typically granted license to copy "for personal, professional, or teaching purposes". Professional purposes and teaching purposes are things that the person has an interest in, so by mentioning these things separately, we must conclude that "teaching" is not a "personal purpose". And so: I would conclude that a court could find that using a product to support a political campaign, philosophy, or religion, is a "public" purpose, not a "personal" purpose. At the same time, at least as I understand it, a lure module is a thing that others besides yourself personally can see (I admit, I don't go), which implies that the purpose of the thing is not entirely private. In addition, there is a fair amount of buzz out there about how a lure could be good for business, which is (1) clearly in contradiction of the license terms and (2) clearly a golden opportunity for Niantic, perhaps in a few weeks after everybody gets hooked and then they will offer non-personal licenses. Their license terms also say that you will not "use the Services or Content, or any portion thereof, for any commercial purpose or for the benefit of any third party or in a manner not permitted by these Terms". I would say that that definitively says "No don't do it", and it also means that you can't be nice to a neighbor. So what they literally say and what they really intend are probably completely different things.
The First Amendment states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. It thus protects such videos. An analogous situation is that there is network news coverage of riots, bank robberies, terrorist attacks and assaults. Backpage was seized because it facilitated prostitution, not just reported or even encouraged it. That is basically where the line exists.