Do you remember 20 years ago? The World Wide Web was just coming into being. The era of digital cell phone technology began. And Home School Legal Defense Association launched a daily radio program called Home School Heartbeat. This week, Mike Smith and Mike Farris reminisce about their 20 years of hosting this program.
Mike Smith:
Mike, as you know, we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary of doing Home School Heartbeat, and you’ve reported on a lot of cases that we’ve handled. What would be a couple of cases that you could think of today you’d like to share with our listeners about?
Mike Farris:
Well, I really appreciate the program’s ability to talk to people about current events, including the cases that we’ve worked on. The one in 1993, the DeJonge case, of course, was probably the biggest single victory that we ever won as HSLDA, where Michigan’s law that required parents to be certified teachers was declared unconstitutional by that state. I really enjoyed, recently at a homeschool conference, talking to one of the DeJonge kids. She’s now a homeschool mom and she's got three or four kids herself, and just seeing that generational aspect of the work we’ve done over the years was really exciting.
The Calabretta case and the Stumbo case, both involving the ability of families to have Fourth Amendment protection from the social workers that want to try and get in your home—both of those were incredibly important and a lot of fun to work on.
Mike Smith:
Well, thank you, Mike, and we’ll continue this line of discussion next time. And until then, I’m Mike Smith.
