{"id":369597,"date":"2018-07-16T09:13:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T08:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/kavanaugh-would-advance-devoss-religious-agenda-for-schools\/"},"modified":"2018-07-16T09:13:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T08:13:59","slug":"kavanaugh-would-advance-devoss-religious-agenda-for-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/kavanaugh-would-advance-devoss-religious-agenda-for-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Kavanaugh Would Advance DeVos\u2019s Religious Agenda for Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

Immediately after Betsy DeVos took over as U.S. Secretary of Education, numerous education policy experts expressed<\/a> doubts she\u2019d have much success <\/a>in enacting her well-documented<\/a> agenda to impose her brand of Christian religion on public schools and direct more public money to private religious schools.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, however, is yet another indicator that DeVos\u2019s detractors were wrong, as he would surely support a legal pathway to what DeVos wants.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn private practice, Kavanaugh backed the government when it sought to support religious interests and challenged schools when they attempted to exclude religious groups,\u201d the Washington Post<\/em> reports<\/a>, citing his defense of student-led prayers at high school football games and a religious school club from being barred by school administrators.<\/p>\n

In tracing a potential legal pathway from taxpayer money for school prayer and religious clubs to \u201cmore sweeping voucher programs,\u201d the Post reporter points to a narrow ruling<\/a> from the court last year, in Trinity Lutheran Church v.\u00a0Comer<\/a><\/em>, that said denying a church-affiliated preschool from receiving a general public benefit, in this case funding for playground resurfacing, violates constitutional protections for the free exercise of religion.<\/p>\n

But Kavanaugh\u2019s support of the DeVos agenda for school vouchers and religious education goes way beyond that narrow ruling, and it relies on a bizarre, but long-held view of conservative jurists.<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh\u2019s Ties to Voucher Proponents <\/h2>\n

As the son of a public-school teacher and a volunteer tutor of students in Washington, D.C., Kavanaugh\u2019s public persona<\/a> may come across as friendly to public schools, but Kavanaugh was raised in elite private schools and has nothing in his record that would indicate a strong support for public education.<\/p>\n

His history of legally undermining the separation of church and state is a fact not in dispute. In his work with the Federalist Society \u2013 the rightwing project that has largely engineered<\/a> today\u2019s high court and compiled<\/a> the list of potential nominees for Trump \u2013 Kavanaugh has led<\/a> its \u201cSchool Choice Practice Group\u201d and \u201cReligious Liberties Group.\u201d<\/a> These groups help the Federalist Society craft its legal arguments<\/a> on the unconstitutionality of excluding religious options from school choice programs.<\/p>\n

Among the primary targets for these groups is to repeal amendments in 39 state constitutions<\/a> that prohibit direct government aid to educational institutions that have a religious affiliation. This argument already has the Supreme Court\u2019s partial consent, given its ruling last year that ordered a New Mexico Supreme Court<\/a> to reconsider a decision barring religious schools from a state textbook lending program.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh also has a history of supporting school vouchers that allow parents to use public taxdollars to pay tuition for private, religious schools. In 2000, he represented<\/a> then Florida Governor Jeb Bush to push through the state\u2019s first school voucher program, which was eventually struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in a 2006 decision.<\/p>\n

But just as Kavanaugh and his conservative colleagues were being stymied in state courts, they were blazing a legal pathway for federal support of school vouchers.<\/p>\n

Religious Is \u2018Secular\u2019<\/h2>\n

In an appearance on CNN in 2000, Politico<\/em> reports<\/a>, Kavanaugh \u201cpredicted\u2026 that school vouchers would one day be upheld by the Court.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comment was in reference to a Supreme Court ruling that year, Mitchell v. Helms<\/a><\/em>, which challenged a federal program that provided all schools, both public and private, with instructional materials and equipment, including computers and film projectors. The split decision to uphold<\/a> the program was extremely narrow, with some judges tipping the scale in favor deciding that the federal government can provide secular aid to any institution as long as the aid was used strictly for secular activities \u2013 presumably, using computers, even when they are helping to operate a religious program, and running film projectors, even when they are showing religious movies.<\/p>\n

Defining education-related activities as essentially \u201csecular\u201d provided conservative jurists a huge loophole to use in later rulings to advance religion in public education.<\/p>\n

Another narrow decision by the Court in 2002, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris<\/a><\/em>, upheld an Ohio program that gave school vouchers to low-income families even if they used the vouchers to send their children to private, religious schools. In that ruling, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that in this instance government support for private religious schools was \u201creligiously neutral\u201d because the program was based on the economic means of the student and on the geographic location of the family. The fact vouchers were restricted to low-income children in the district made them \u201csecular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ohio [voucher] program is entirely neutral with respect to religion,\u201d Rehnquist argued<\/a>. \u201cIt provides benefits directly to a wide spectrum of individuals, defined only by financial need and residence in a particular school district. It permits such individuals to exercise genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious. The program is therefore a program of true private choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Rehnquist was arguing that private funding for religious schools could be religiously neutral and subject to private choice, he was also asserting in other cases that institutional support for religious advocacy in public schools was also a private, neutral activity and thus allowable under the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Education Is \u2018Neutral\u2019<\/h2>\n

In a paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Kavanaugh praises<\/a> Rehnquist\u2019s reasoning.<\/p>\n

Among the cases where Kavanaugh took Rehnquist\u2019s side, Lee v. Weisman<\/a><\/em> and Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe<\/a><\/em>, court majorities ruled there was clear evidence that when the assets and staff of a school are behind organized prayer activities, then schools are overstepping their boundaries and using public funds to promote religion. Rehnquist sided with the dissent in each case, according to Kavanaugh, arguing against a \u201cstrict wall of separation between church and state\u201d and against court precedents that \u201ccordon off public schools from state-sponsored religious prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh praises Rehnquist for having \u201chad much more success in ensuring that religious schools and religious institutions could participate as equals in society and in state benefits programs, receiving funding or benefits from the state so long as the funding was pursuant to a neutral program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh\u2019s argument that religious expression in education settings is somehow neutral occurs again in in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute last year. According to a report<\/a> by the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Kavanaugh argued that \u201c\u2019religious schools and religious institutions\u2019 should be able to \u2018receiv[e] funding or benefits from the state so long as the funding [i]s pursuant to a neutral program that, among other things, include[s] religious and nonreligious institutions alike.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Given this line of reasoning, Kavanaugh might agree that a program funding textbooks in schools would be \u201cneutral,\u201d even if the textbooks used in the religious schools taught a version of history<\/a> that says \u201cthe majority of slave holders treated their slaves well\u201d or a version of science<\/a> that says humans and dinosaurs lived together.<\/p>\n

What DeVos Wants<\/h2>\n

Certainly, the fundamental principle that public money should not be used to advocate religious beliefs in a public school is already at risk.<\/p>\n

There are voucher programs in 15 states and the District of Columbia that allow parents to use taxpayer money to pay for tuition at private, religious schools, according to a report<\/a> by the Network for Public Education. Other states have created school tax credit programs<\/a> and education savings account programs<\/a> that are voucher-like but set up differently to deliberately get around the issue of state funding going directly to religious schools.<\/p>\n

Each of those programs has been approved along very narrow lines either on the basis of what is allowed in state constitutions, or similar to legal precedent established by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

But the slippery slope conservatives have been plotting for decades<\/a> leads inexorably to what Secretary DeVos wants.<\/p>\n

In her advocacy for education reform as a way to \u201cadvance God\u2019s kingdom,\u201d<\/a> DeVos envisions a greater presence for religion \u2013 the Christian religion \u2013 in public schools. <\/p>\n

In her advocacy for school vouchers, DeVos compares<\/a> education to a consumer good \u2013 a commodity that is neutral \u2013 and a matter determined strictly<\/a> by \u201cparent choice\u201d and not public governance, even when the public has to pay for it.<\/p>\n

Should Kavanaugh be confirmed, which is what is expected, DeVos is far more apt to have a Supreme Court that agrees with her.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Via Common Dreams<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immediately after Betsy DeVos took over as U.S. Secretary of Education, numerous education policy experts expressed doubts she\u2019d have much success in enacting her well-documented agenda to impose her brand of Christian religion on public schools and direct more public money to private religious schools. President Trump\u2019s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":369598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-369597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}