It's Wednesday, April 13, 2022.

I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events

from a Christian worldview.

As we think about the collision between the government and parental rights,

especially with the locus of the controversy being the public schools,

it is tempting to think that we're looking at something new.

Actually we're looking at a very long argument and a very long struggle.

But there is no question the stakes are getting higher.

But it's very interesting to go back and

consider during the 20th century the particular flashpoints at which parents

and the public schools came into conflict. Jill Lepore who is the-Kimper professor of American history at Harvard University, also

writes for The New Yorker, and she's written a very interesting piece in a recent issue that

goes back to what she calls the parent trap.

She describes how school fights from evolution to anti-racism

pit parents against the state.

Jill Lepore is really a specialist

when it comes to popular history.

She's writing from the left, but conservatives ought to pay attention to what she's writing here,

because she points to a very important pedigree.

She points to a very long argument.

And I think she's on to something when she goes back to the evolution controversy

in the early decades of the 20th century to say you're pretty much looking at the same

...