Religion & American Law

When I read the title of this article it automatically caught my attention, although I did not see any significance till I read the article itself. A Catholic school in Shawano, Wisconsin reprimanded a student for telling her friend “I love you” in her native language. Miranda Washinawatok was also not allowed to play on her middle school basketball game because the teacher took offense to her speaking in her native language. Since the incident theschool officials and teacher have sent letters of apology, but Washinawatok’s mother is trying to get the teacher, Julie Gurta, fired because the letter did not read as an apology but instead continue the accusation of the her daughter’s guilt.  In the video, Washinawatok says that the language is part of her culture, and this plays an important role in the fact that the teacher was Polish and would not want for their to be restriction put on her language. There was a clear denial of language in this case and the school and its staff definitely took the wrong actions toward the student. This only goes against the fact that this was a Catholic school, and the past struggles that people of that faith had to experience in the past. One has to realize that Native American tradition is part of this girl’s identity, which includes the language, so the unfair punishment toward the girl should have been avoided.

The history of past discriminations of the Native American has been a major hill that has to be overcome.  Native Americans have been victims to harmful punishment that was both physical and emotional in the past. The United States cannot say that they never have wrong Native Americans in the past, when there is clear evidence that genocide of the culture, tradition, and of the people was in fact happening in the past. One can look at the Catholic missionaries among others that went onto the Native American’s land and set up missionaries to convert the Indians to their religion, until the Indians finally established their own. Although one can argue that the only reason a “religion” based on that of the Protestant and Catholic religions specifications that surround them was established was so that they could continue practicing their traditions and cultures that were being restricted by the federal government. Tisa Wenger wrote in We Have a Religion, that the Native Americans understood the value of naming their practices under the label of “religion” since their freedoms would be guaranteed and that they were defending their tribal identify. This may also apply to this case in which the student may make claim that she has the right of freedom of speech guaranteed to her by the civil discourse of the United States, and that the teacher was and is to be reprimanded herself for breaking a law. One can say that the Native Americans have been placed outside of the scope of the freedoms that are guaranteed to the people of the United States.