Public Education In A \u27Religious State\u27: South Carolina Responds to Engel V. Vitale (1962), Abington V. Schempp (1963), and Murray V. Curlett (1963)

Since its inception in the mid-1800s, public education has been one of the most contested arenas in American life. Among the battles fought in this domain, none have been more heated than the appropriate role of religion in the public schools. From the 1844 Philadelphia Bible Riots, to the 1925 debate over Darwinism and Creationism, to recent skirmishes regarding the Pledge of Allegiance, these and other disputes have been the subject of considerable scholarship. In South Carolina, however, one controversy regarding the intersection of religion and public education has received little attention, namely the trio of harshly criticized Supreme Court decisions between 1962 and 1963. At the height of the Cold War and in the midst of racial integration, the High Court in Engel v. Vitale (1962) ruled that state-sanctioned, non-denominational prayer violated the First Amendment\u27s no-establishment clause. In response, the majority of South Carolinians decried the ruling as advancing a Communist agenda and permitting the federal government to intrude into state matters. This indignation only intensified after the Supreme Court held that devotional Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord\u27s Prayer as seen in Abington v. Schempp (1963) and Murray v. Curlett (1963) were violations of the First Amendment\u27s Establishment Clause. Once again, South Carolinians were very vocal in expressing their fear that the removal of longstanding religious exercises from the public school would allow atheism to fester which, in turn, would promote Communism. Despite the Palmetto State\u27s fondness for religion, surprisingly some citizens and religious denominations, especially Jewish leaders, applauded the decisions as a way of upholding Jefferson\u27s &ldquo\u27wall of separation\u27&ldquo principle. Those who supported the decisions often understood that South Carolina, which by the twentieth century was more pluralistic than ever before, had no authority to assume a religion or mandate religious practices in any public institution. Despite the Supreme Court\u27s edicts, religion still characterizes the state of South Carolina and will therefore remain a hotly contested topic in the structuring of public institutions, such as the public school

Shared Medical Appointments for Pediatric Asthma

No abstract provided

Phase Control and Eclipse Avoidance in Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits

The baseline trajectory proposed for the Gateway is a southern Earth-Moon L2 Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO). Designed to avoid eclipses, the NRHO exhibits a resonance with the lunar synodic period. The current investigation details the eclipse behavior in the baseline NRHO. Then, phase control is added to the orbit maintenance algorithm to regulate perilune passage time and maintain the eclipse-free characteristics of the Gateway reference orbit. A targeting strategy is designed to periodically target back to the long-horizon virtual reference if the orbit diverges over time in the presence of additional perturbations

Heliocentric Escape and Lunar Impact from Near Rectilinear Halo Orbits

Spacecraft departing from the Gateway in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) experience gravitational forces from the Moon, the Earth, and the Sun, all of which can be simultaneously significant. These complex dynamics influence the post-separation risk of recontact with the Gateway and the eventual destinations of the departing spacecraft. The current investigation examines the flow of objects leaving NRHOs in the Bicircular Restricted Four-Body Problem, and results are applied to heliocentric escape and lunar impact trajectories in a higher-fidelity ephemeris model. Separation maneuver magnitude, direction, and location are correlated with risk of recontact with the Gateway and successful departure to various destinations

Regulating mercury with the Clear Skies Act : the resulting impacts on innovation, human health, and the global community

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-87).The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments require the U.S. EPA to control mercury emission outputs from coal-burning power plants through implementation of MACT, Maximum Achievable Control Technology, standards. However, in 2003 the Bush Administration revealed an alternative and controversial regulatory strategy for mercury, developing a cap and trade emissions credit trading program under the Clear Skies Initiative. Although emissions trading was proven to be a successful regulatory strategy for sulfur dioxide through the 1992 Acid Rain Program, the uniquely dangerous properties of mercury make this market-based regulation risky for certain vulnerable segments of the population. Since its unveiling, the Clear Skies cap and trade approach has been criticized for being too industry-friendly and inadequately setting limits on mercury emissions. Current challenges to the Clear Skies approach to the regulation of mercury claim that not only is it illegal under the Clear Air Act, but that it inhibits innovation and undermines an international strategy to reduce anthropogenic mercury emissions. This thesis evaluates the critiques of Clear Skies and the reasoning given by the EPA in defense of the regulation.(cont.) Recent academic studies and a comparison case study with the Acid Rain Program are used to discuss the probable effects of Clear Skies on mercury reduction. The main questions addressed in the thesis are: 1) what is the motivation for Clear Skies? 2) what is the legal basis for the Initiative? 3) what are the potential failures of Clear Skies in protecting against mercury exposure? 4) what will be the resulting impact of Clear Skies on technological innovation? and 5) how does Clear Skies compare with international mercury reduction strategies?by Meghan Sweeney.S.M