Agudath Israel of America expressed its disappointment today with the Michigan Court of Claims’ recent decision striking down the state’s nonpublic school reimbursement program.
In her decision, Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Diane Stephens said the program violates the state constitution’s “Blaine amendment” language prohibiting direct or indirect aid to nonpublic schools. The $2.5 million program to reimburse nonpublic schools for state mandates that pertain to the health, safety, and welfare of their students was included in the 2016 and 2017 budget bills. The multi-year effort was led by the Michigan Catholic Conference and the Michigan Association of Non-Public Schools, who were joined by Agudath Israel of America and other nonpublic school advocates. However, due to the lawsuit by the ACLU and others, payment has been held back.
Agudath Israel of America joined several other organizations in an amicus curiae brief in 2016 (click here to see brief) asking the Michigan Supreme Court to review the program before it took effect. Unfortunately, the court declined to opine on the constitutionality of the program at the time and it is now working its way through the state courts. The same attorneys who wrote the amicus brief for the nonpublic school groups recently filed a separate lawsuit arguing that the very “Blaine amendment” which is the basis of this negative ruling, is itself unconstitutional.
“We are hopeful that the state will appeal this ruling to the Court of Appeals and that the second lawsuit dealing with constitutionality of the Blaine amendment prevails, thus removing the dark cloud over our nations’ history,” said Rabbi A. D. Motzen, Agudath Israel’s national director of state relations. “Blaine amendments are debilitating provisions born of bigotry specifically targeting religion and its adherents.”
The nation’s first mandated services program was established by the New York State Legislature in 1974, thanks to the pioneering efforts of Rabbi Moshe Sherer of Agudath Israel of America and other nonpublic school advocates.
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5 Responses
A bunch of meshuganers
Once and for all, Agudah should stop seeking unconstitutional financing of religious schools through the back door and instead focus their efforts on funding for our own mosdos. Parents make the decision to bypass publicly financed schools for their own reasons. Their are many public services for which we pay taxes and don’t use. We don’t seek compensation for using a private hospital in lieu of a lower cost/lower quality publicly owned medical care facility. We may forego public housing (even if we qualify) and find our own housing alternatives but don’t turn around and bill the government for the additional cost. If we choose a yeshiva over the local public school, we should be willing to pay the additional cost as most Americans, of various religious faiths have done for over a hundred years.
Gadolhadorah,
You don’t think our schools are religious non-public schools??? That’s who Agudah is fighting for. My children sitting in yeshiva and bais yaakov in Oak Park and Southfield, Michigan (Detroit frum community) will lose out from this ruling. The schools here barely get anything as it is.
I’m getting tired of saying this, but it needs to be said. America requires separation of “church” and state. That, overall, is good for the Jews. Taxes on everyone to support public schools gives little benefit to taxpayers who don’t use public schools. Our wise men (and women?) should figure out how to send Jewish children to public school for part of the day, at taxpayer expense, and to yeshivas for the balance of each day, at parents’ and other Jews’ expense.
I fully understand the crushing burden of yeshiva tuition. In fact, I believe it is the greatest threat to the future of Torah Judaism in the US – greater than assimilation and anti-Semitism. We need taxpayer help, and we can get it, but we must figure out how to do it.
No, huju, the US constitution does not require separation of church and state. Indeed that phrase was unknown in US jurisprudence until it was introduced in the 1940s by Hugo Black, who learned it during his previous career in the KKK. The US constitution only forbids congress from giving one religion official status as the state religion, supporting it at the expense of taxpayers of all other religions and none. Neutral measures such as this one, which fund all nonpublic schools equally, are perfectly fine, and indeed refusal to fund religious schools on the same basis as secular nonpublic schools seems to violate the free exercise clause.
Gadolhadorah, the Supreme Court has made it very clear that the funding at issue here does not violate the US constitution. The Michigan court ruled that it violates the state constitution, which contains a “Blaine amendment”, which was passed in the early 20th century out of explicit anti-Catholic bigotry. Blaine and his supporters didn’t even try to hide their motivation; they were proud of it. These amendments have survived SCOTUS scrutiny before, but with Gorsuch on the court it may be time to challenge them again.