Over the past week or so, we've covered some cases that involve the Freedom of religion and have learned that the Supreme Court will generally look at each case independently; the rulings can differ and are not so straightforward. One case that we learned about was Engel v. Vitale, which set the precedent that religious ideals or beliefs cannot be imposed on students attending public schools since public schools are funded by the government. This gave us a sense of when the Supreme Court will protect the freedom of religion when it is a matter of public v. private schools. However, in the landmark religion case Mitchell v. Helms (2000), the court ruled otherwise. This case involved the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981, which basically allowed public and private schools to receive funding for "educational materials and equipment" from the government. These materials were intended to be "secular, neutral, and nonideological." However, because about 30% of this funding went to private schools, public school parents felt that the program violated the freedom of religion (most of the private schools were religiously affiliated, and the parents sued because they felt that the government was allocating a significant amount of funding to support the schools' religious ideals). The final ruling of the Supreme Court was that the program does not violate the freedom of religion because funding went to both private and public schools; any "personal" interests of the government are not being advanced because of the Act. This made me compare the ruling to that of Engel v Vitale. Since private schools are privately funded and do not receive funding from the government, they are allowed to uphold/support a religion. But under the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act, private schools directly receive governmental aid, and the supreme court deemed this constitutional. This seems to be contradictory. What do you guys think?
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/98-1648
This appears to be contradictory to the supreme courts earlier ruling in 1971 on the Lemon v. Kurtzman case. In this case, it was deemed that a state statute that donated money to non secular school would be supporting the ideologies of the school and thus is against the first amendment. ( https://legaldictionary.net/lemon-v-kurtzman/ ) I wonder why the supreme court would apparently change their idea on what the first amendment allows for. Maybe it is something like the "separate but equal" decision, where in theory, if the government is donating money evenly, no ideologies should be supported more than another. I'm not sure personally if I would agree with that, as most religious private school in my experience are christian and so christian schools would be more unevenly being supported. The lemon test based off of the Lemon case states that the, "Government’s action must have a secular purpose. Government’s action must neither advance nor prohibit religion. Government’s action must not result in the excessive government involvement with religion" and if these are true, that it is not in violation of the first amendment. I personally think that it violates the second one, but I could easily see how someone could see it differently.
ReplyDeleteThe supreme court's ruling in Mitchell v. Helms (2000) made sense at the time because any funding that went to public schools was not used in any discriminatory acts. Since freedom of religion only applies to public institutes, private schools, regardless of funding, should be able to request what student demographic they want.
ReplyDeleteThese rulings do seem contradictory, but we also have to think about who will be attending these private schools. Since we know that the majority of private schools are religiously affiliated, and the ones that are don't try and hide this affiliation, only people who are ok with this religion are going to attend. Therefore, it is also technically not violating the freedom of religion. The government giving aid does not technically constitute as a support of a specific religion, given the variety of religious institutions out there, and the students all have the choice to go there and be exposed to said religion.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people have a choice in the matter when it comes to attending religiously affiliated private schools, but I still don't understand how the government can provide aid to them without making it seem like they are supporting that religion. They may not be supporting a specific religion, but by providing funding, they are showing their support for religion in general, which definitely goes against the beliefs of atheists. Like Alex said, it's a conflict of interest and I don't think private schools necessarily should get the funding.
DeleteI think that this is an interesting dilemma. First, I wonder why these private schools really get funding in the first place. I thought that was kind of the point of a private school vs a public school. I can also see how these cases seem to cause problems. If the government funds a religious private school then it could be taken that they are backing a religion which is constitutionally incorrect. I think that this could be a case of shifting supreme courts. Every era there are a new set of judges which may have different ideologies and motivations which could explain them contradicting each other. Personally, I don't think that private schools should get money in the first place because they are not under the control of the state/federal government.
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