Blaine Amendments Protect Religious Liberty, Prohibit Establishing Religion via School Vouchers
So-called Blaine Amendments in many of the state constitutions prohibit the diversion of taxpayer dollars to religious schools. Over the weekend, The Hill published a commentary on the state Blaine Amendments by Robert G. Natelson , a retired professor of constitutional law and a fellow at the the far-right Heartland Institute. Natelson argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn the Blaine Amendments in several state constitutions because they were created in an era of anti-Catholic bias and at a time when public schools reflected their Protestant beginnings.
Several times in the 1870s and 1880s, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, James G. Blaine proposed a federal constitutional amendment to prohibit the expenditure of public dollars at religious schools. While the amendment to the U.S. Constitution was never adopted, a number of the states passed so-called Blaine Amendments to their constitutions. In many those states today, the Blaine Amendment has been interpreted to mean that the state constitution prohibits the use of school vouchers in sectarian schools.
Diane Ravitch, the historian of education, responds to Natelson at the Huffington Post. She agrees with Natelson about the origin of the Blaine Amendments:, “Natelson is right that the public schools of the 19th century were deeply imbued with Protestant teachings and practices… The arrival of large numbers of Irish immigrants in the 1840s, mostly Catholic, concurred with the beginnings of public school systems in urban areas…. The Blaine Amendment appealed to anti-Catholic sentiment among the dominant Protestant majority….”
Ravitch explains, however, that public schools are no longer dominated by any religion, nor do they incorporate religious practices. Courts, according to Ravitch, ought to consider the reality that today, public schools have shed religious practices, particularly since the 1962, U.S. Supreme Court decision in Engel v Vitale, that banned school prayer. Today public schools are expected to protect the right of each child to worship according to the child’s or family’s religious beliefs and to protect the U.S. Constitutional ban on religious education.
There is widespread acceptance today in public schools and across U.S. religious bodies that the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion applies in schools operated in the public sphere by government. Here is the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people Blaine Amendments Protect Religious Liberty, Prohibit Establishing Religion via School Vouchers | janresseger:
