You all may be familiar with the interesting parental rights case playing out right now in New Jersey. Heath and Deborah Campbell are neo-Nazi type folks who have three children: 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, almost-2-year-old Joyce-Lynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and 9-month-old Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell. They first came to media attention awhile back when a local store refused to make a birthday cake for little Adolph that had his legal name on it. They are back in the news because the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services removed the children from their home this week, citing some sort of imminent danger and insisting that it was not "just" about the names.
For the moment, grant me the assumption that these children are not being physically abused. All the available evidence suggests that they are not being abused. If they were removed because of concerns about the parents' beliefs and political activities they are involved in that have no direct threat to the kids' safety, then this case gets very dicey.
The most obvious concern is where one draws the line. Once one says that parental beliefs can be a cause for child removal, how in heaven's name do we determine which beliefs are okay and which are not? The slippery slope here is very, very slick and leads to a very bad place.
But there's also a more subtle concern. Suppose the parents are raving neo-Nazis who are taking their kids to meetings and the like. Suppose they are teaching them to hate Jews and blacks etc. But suppose that the kids' physical and emotional needs are being minimally cared for. We might all agree that this is a terrible way to grow up, but is it worse for the kids than becoming wards of the state and shuffling around the foster care system until they are 18? I would be prepared to argue that staying in that home is the lesser of two evils here.
Family policy decisions are no different from any other policy decision: utopia is not an option. We are always engaged in comparative institutional analysis of imperfect options. The Fallacy of the Ipso Facto Leap applies here too. We might deplore what these parents believe and how they are raising their kids, but it's not clear that the state's solution is automatically better. Our rightful sympathy for children in a situation they didn't consent to doesn't change that.
Most people don't know, but years ago I published an aricle on the termination of parental rights. The legal standard of proof for terminating parental rights is very high -- somewhere above the preponderance of the evidence and the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. It is called "clear and convincing evidence." This is as it should be. As far as I know, teaching children Nazi propaganda is not anywhere in the realm of legally acceptable reasons for termination.
However, there is a concern when the consequences of naming your kid "Adolph Hitler" is that he gets shunned by the community -- the bakery wouldn't provide him with a birthday cake with his name on it. Even this is not enough in my book. After all, kids gets shunned for being from gay, Jewish, Morman families.
When I first heard this I wondered if the parents liked Hitler so much why didn't the father have the courage to go before a judge and get his own name changed to Adolph Hitler? Or even the mother?!
Posted by: Mario Rizzo | January 16, 2009 at 05:21 PM
Sorry, the example I will give is simply absurd, but what do you think it should be done if the name of the child was 'Kill Me'? Or maybe 'Killer'?
Posted by: Renato Drumond | January 17, 2009 at 01:22 AM
While these parents are clearly idiots, they have do not meet the standard for taking children. If so, there should be a lot of muslim children being taken from their families if we follow this logic.
Posted by: simone | January 17, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Great Post!
As a former NJ DYFS employee, I REALLY feel bad for these children. Here is a situation where both the parents and the state believe that they are correct in their respective evaluations of their cases. As odd as it may seem, in most CPS cases, many parents acknowledge that there was some wrongdoing due to drug abuse, neglect, physical abuse, etc. that gave rise to the investigation.
Mario Rizzo: Does your article speak to the initial removal. Termination of Parental Rights is the culmination of a series of onerous, and emotionally-exhausting "Fact-Finding" court appearances for both children and parents. So while the standards for termination of parental rights are high, the standards for the initial removal are nothing more than "gut-feeling." And believe me, the initial removal "hurts everyone the most!"
Posted by: Brian Pitt | January 17, 2009 at 01:15 PM
In Germany today, you cannot chose names that the state considers inappropriate.
For example, here in the USA the name McKenzie can be assigned to either gender. In Germany, it would be ruled only a name fitting for a male and you would be prohibited from naming your daughter McKenzie.
As for the NJ neo Nazis, they are simply moronic white trash and should be totally ignored. They are receiving exactly what they intended and that is media attention.
They were featured in local papers months ago and, of course, this only encouraged them. They soon will be on TV as our compliant - and stupid - media, ever willing to be manipulated, gives them copious publicity.
Posted by: AC | January 17, 2009 at 04:57 PM
Brian,
No, the standard is not for an initial removal. I wrote about the 1982 Supreme Court case, Santosky v. Kramer, which concerned "permanent neglect" and the final termination of parental rights. A lot of misery can be caused before that point.
Mario
Posted by: Mario Rizzo | January 18, 2009 at 04:08 PM
While the parent's views are evidence of some type of problem fitting into what we understand as normal society (progressive, non-violent, etc), I find it odd that so many people jump to a unique cause for this:
"As for the NJ neo Nazis, they are simply moronic white trash..."
"...these parents are clearly idiots..."
Buchanan and Tullock said it as well as any I have read: "we assume that men's interests will differ for reasons other than those of ignorance."
Having said that, this quote is simply a modeling assumption by no means does it exclude the possibility of real ignorance, but that evidence should be given clearly if ignorance is going to be stated as a conclusion, as the sole cause.
It is a far more interesting world that understands the difference between systematic perversion and stupidity. If all deviance is going to be measured and "trimmed" at one standard deviation, for example, we quickly unravel society to true chaos. I believe this type of social norming was captured most eloquently by the poem written by Martin Niemöller.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Martin_Niemoeller.jpg
Niemöller's sentiment is echoed in the courage of this post as well as in landmark cases such as the ACLU vs. the village of Skokie.
We may bitterly disagree, but laws exist for more than making our neighbors choose our standards for their lives.
Posted by: mthomas | January 19, 2009 at 09:27 AM
I went to school with two sisters, the one's middle name was "war eagle" and the younger actually was called "tiger." (an homage to Auburn University)
Somehow I am reminded of this when I re-read the post.
Posted by: mthomas | January 21, 2009 at 11:57 AM