Policy Forum 

# Secularism Triumphant: Is the US Education System Turning into the French System? 

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Date and Time 

November 8, 2023 12 - 1:30 PM EST 

Location 

Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 

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##### Featuring 

![Rim-Sarah Alouane - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-10/Alouane-cropped-for-event.jpg?itok=Ndo739op) 

Rim-Sarah Alouane 

Doctoral Candidate and Researcher in Comparative Law, Toulouse 1 Capitole University

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![Asma Uddin - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-10/Uddin-cropped.jpg?itok=CIYCN7gp) 

Asma Uddin 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Law, Catholic University

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[![Rob Boston - cropped](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2023-10/rboston-cropped.jpg?itok=DcDOIxP6)](/people/rob-boston) 

[Rob Boston](/people/rob-boston)

Editor, *Church & State*, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

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](https://twitter.com/RobBoston1) 

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[Neal McCluskey](/people/neal-mccluskey)

Former Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute

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[Mustafa Akyol](/people/mustafa-akyol)

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

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In France, students in public schools are prohibited from wearing religious clothing, which authorities fear would contaminate the secular oases public schools are supposed to be. It is a coercive interpretation of secularism, which imposes secular values on religious individuals, instead of protecting state neutrality, pluralism, and liberty.

Is education in the United States heading in the same direction? Religious symbols are fortunately not banned in American schools, but there is concern that secular values are imposed in other ways: the Montgomery County, Maryland, school district recently prohibited students, starting in kindergarten, from opting out of LGBTQ+ readings, including for religious reasons. Indeed, for some renowned public schooling advocates, replacing religiously based morality with other values through the state has been an explicit goal.

In this forum, we will look at education in other parts of the world and the United States to see if the secular has pushed out the religious, whether that would be a good thing, and what to do if it isn’t.

**Lunch to follow.**

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