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Tax Dollars for Crucifixes
. . . In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court issued a sweeping ruling upholding Cleveland's school voucher program. It was a bad decision on constitutional grounds, and a bad one for American education. . . .
Not surprisingly, fully 96.6 percent of students end up taking their vouchers to religiously affiliated schools.
Once students enroll in those schools, they are subjected to just the sort of religious training the First Amendment forbids the state to underwrite. In many cases, students are required to attend Mass or other religious services.
Tax dollars go to buy Bibles, prayer books, crucifixes and other religious iconography. It is hard to think of a starker assault on the doctrine of separation of church and state than taking taxpayer dollars and using them to inculcate specific religious beliefs in young people. . . .
This ruling does as much damage to education as it does to the First Amendment. A common argument for vouchers is that they improve public schools by forcing them to compete for students. What is holding the public schools back, however, is not lack of competitive drive but the resources to succeed. Voucher programs like Cleveland's siphon off public dollars, leaving struggling urban systems with less money for skilled teachers, textbooks and computers. They also skim off some of the best-performing students, and the most informed and involved parents, from public schools that badly need their expertise and energy.
Yesterday's decision also undermines one of the public school system's most important functions: teaching democracy and pluralism. In public schools, Americans of many backgrounds learn together. In the religious schools that Cleveland taxpayers are being forced to sponsor, Catholics are free to teach that their way is best, and Jews, Muslims and those of other faiths can teach their co-religionists that they have truth on their side. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in dissent, "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." This court has removed many bricks.
— Editorial
The Wrong Ruling on Vouchers
New York Times
June 28, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/28/opinion/28FRI1.html?ex=1026545374&ei=1&en=f022d331c5e92d06
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 366
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