June 27, 2002
 

Public Money Can Pay Religious-School Tuition, Court Rules
 

By DAVID STOUT
 

       WASHINGTON, June 27 — The Supreme Court declared today, in one of its
most important rulings on education in years, that it can be
       constitutional for public money to underwrite tuition at religious
schools.
 

The justices voted, 5 to 4, to uphold Cleveland's school-voucher program
and, by extension, similar programs across the country. Such programs
are valid as long as parents can choose among a range of secular and
religious schools, the majority said.
 

"In sum, the Ohio program is entirely neutral with respect to religion,"
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court. "It 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."
 

Therefore, the chief justice wrote, the program does not offend the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which mandates a separation of
church and state.
 

Writing a separate concurrence, Justice Clarence Thomas said programs like
Cleveland's can be beacons of hope to impoverished inner-city
children. Quoting Frederick Douglass, Justice Thomas wrote: "Education
means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the
soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can
only be made free."
 

But Justice John Paul Stevens called today's ruling, which overturned a
finding by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in
Cincinnati, "profoundly misguided." He wrote, "Whenever we remove a brick
from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government,
we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our
democracy."
 

Another dissenter, Justice David H. Souter, said that if there were ever a
good excuse to skirt the Establishment Clause, it might be found in
Cleveland, whose public schools have had a woeful performance and where
thousands of parents have used vouchers to send their children to
private schools.
 

"But there is no excuse," Justice Souter said. "Constitutional limitations
are placed on government to preserve constitutional values in hard cases,
like these."
 

Spirited public debate over voucher systems is certain to continue. Now,
the arena may shift to the nation's legislative chambers.
 

Joining Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas in the majority were
Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy.
 

Joining Justices Stevens and Souter in dissent were Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
 

As the tone of the opinions indicated, the continuing debate about
school-voucher programs involves issues that are not only constitutional but
deeply personal as well. The debate touches not only upon separation of
church and state but on how to best educate America's children.
 

President Bush and many political conservatives support vouchers, and
today's ruling was a resounding victory for them.
 

Opponents of voucher programs say they weaken already struggling public
schools by draining tax money from them.
 

The ruling today went against a 1973 ruling by a more liberal Supreme Court
that struck down a New York tuition-assistance program. The
decision is known as the Nyquist ruling, after Ewald B. Nyquist, who was
the New York State education commissioner from 1970 to 1977.
 

The case was argued before the Supreme Court on Feb. 20. The importance of
the case was signaled by the court's allowing 80 minutes for
lawyers' presentations, a rare departure from the usual one-hour limit.
 

On Feb. 20, supporters of the Cleveland voucher system called it "a limited
program targeted to the most needy, the poorest of the poor, who
would not otherwise have a choice," in the words of Judith L. French, an
Ohio assistant attorney general. Nearly 4,000 of Cleveland's 57,000
elementary-age public school pupils take part. The vouchers are worth up to
$2,250.
 

Justice Souter signaled his skepticism at the time. "At the end of the day,
a massive amount of money went to the religious schools in Nyquist, and a
massive amount of money goes to the religious schools here," he said.
"That's the sticking point."
 

But the majority reasoned today that the preponderance of religious schools
taking part in the program did not result from the program's intent but
rather is a phenomenon common to many American cities.
 

The texts of the opinions in the case, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, No.
00-1751, can be read on the Supreme Court's web site:
www.supremecourtus.gov. Susan Tave Zelman is Ohio's superintendent of
public instruction.
 

As important as today's ruling was, it may not be the Supreme Court's final
word on the issue. On a few issues of transcendent importance, the
Supreme Court has reversed its own rulings, most notably in the 1954 ruling
in Brown v. Board of Education, in which the court declared
segregated schools unconstitutional, thus voiding an 1896 ruling that
upheld the "separate but equal" principle.
 

"I hope that a future court will reconsider today's dramatic departure from
basic Establishment Clause principle," Justice Souter wrote at the end of
his dissent.
 
 
 
 
 

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