Almost 15 years ago, a group of Louisiana parents gathered in a small New
Orleans meeting room to announce a challenge of federal funding for parochial
education.
Their challenge was encompassing – and threatened to change
the face of parochial education across the nation.
Almost 15 years ago, a group of Louisiana parents gathered in a small New
Orleans meeting room to announce a challenge of federal funding for parochial
education.
Their challenge was encompassing – and threatened to change
the face of parochial education across the nation.
However, last month, the challenge finally was decided – with
the U.S. Supreme Court deciding that federal funds could continue to be used
to fund parochial education in this country.
In a decision announced on the last day of the court term,
six of the nine justices affirmed the constitutionality of a 33-year-old federal
program that provides computers and other instructional materials to the nations
public, private and religious schools.
In addition to upholding the funding program, the recent decision
also seemed to signal a key change in how church-state issues are viewed by
the court.
Opponents of the Chapter 2 funding program argued it violated
the separation of church and state by using federal funds to advance religion.
However, a majority of justices disagreed. Writing for four
of the justices, Justice Clarence Thomas said the aid program “does not
have the primary effect of advancing religion.”
Thomas said the “religious nature of a recipient (through
the program) should not matter to the constitutional analysis so long as the
recipient adequately furthers the governments secular purpose.”
While supporters of education vouchers and tax-funded religious
social services cheered the ruling as helpful to their efforts, strict church-state
separationists criticized the court – and Thomas opinion.
The opinion does go against prior court philosophy. Indeed,
in it, Thomas dismissed technical terms that have been used for years to guide
what type of government aid to religious schools is allowed.
He also opposed the ban on tax funds to “pervasively sectarian”
institutions – organizations where the religious mission is so dominant that
it cannot be separated from the secular. That principle has forced churches
to set up separate nonprofits in order to qualify for government funds. However,
if the Thomas view was to be accepted by a majority of Supreme Court justices,
direct funding of churches would be allowed, observers acknowledge.
Thomas said the time when the “pervasively sectarian”
doctrine mattered in aid to schools “is one that the court should regret,
and it is thankfully long past.” He said past hostility to aid to sectarian
schools was predicated on anti-Catholic bigotry, which the court should not
hesitate to disavow.
Thomas said such aid provided by the federal Chapter 2 program
does not advance religion “since aid is allocated on the basis of neutral,
secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion and is made available
to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis.”
Thomas was joined in his opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist
and Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.
Meanwhile, Justices Sandra Day OConnor and Stephen Breyer
agreed the Chapter 2 program is constitutional but disputed other parts of the
Thomas opinion regarding aid to sectarian entities.
In turn, Justice David Souter wrote a dissenting opinion, joined
by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Souter said government aid corrupts religion, inevitably causes
conflict and violates freedom of conscience by forcing taxpayers to support
religion. He said the attack on the “pervasively sectarian” doctrine
wrongly “equates a refusal to aid religious schools with hostility to religion.”
Like the justices, church-state observers disagreed on the
ruling.
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs General Counsel Melissa
Rogers said the ruling could open the door to government regulation of religious
organizations that accept taxpayer funds.
“Religion may use this opening to procure government aid,
but government also may use it to cross over to the religious side and monitor
such aid and perform other government oversight,” Rogers said. “It
is wrong to force taxpayers to advance religion by allowing tax money to flow
to religious schools and their sacred missions, and it is counterproductive
for religion to receive the support of the state.”
Americans United for Separation of Church and State Executive
Director Barry Lynn blasted the nations high court for taking a “sledgehammer
to the wall of separation between church and state.”
At public expense, “religious schools can now have students
surf the Internet to read the Bible in religion classes, learn theology from
Jerry Falwell or download crucifixes as screen savers,” he said.
Other religious groups hailed the ruling.
“What it means is that children who go to private religiously
affiliated schools will continue to share in the benefits of the changes in
educational technology,” said Mark Chopko, general counsel of the United
States Catholic Conference.
The decision is a “great defeat for those who favor religious
discrimination in government programs,” said Michael Whitehead, an attorney
and interim president at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“The governments interest is educating its citizenry,”
he noted. “The purpose and primary effect of computer aid is not to advance
religion. It is to advance education of all citizens, those in public schools
and those in private schools.”
Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President
Richard Land suggested the decision could aid the push for school vouchers at
religious schools.
“Say a case came before the court where a state government
was offering vouchers or tuition-tax credits that could be used at private schools
but not religiously-affiliated schools,” he explained.
“If such a case were to appear before this present court,
it would appear, based on this decision, that it would say that the state does
not have to offer vouchers or tax credits, but if they choose to do so that
they then cannot discriminate against religiously-affiliated schools.”
(This article includes information from Associated Baptist
Press and Baptist Press reports)