A taxpayers’ suit challenging the allocation of Federal funds to four Catholic-affiliated colleges in Connecticut may develop into a direct attack on the constitutionality of portions of the 1963 Higher Education Facilities Act which have been interpreted as permitting public aid to religious institutions, an American Jewish Congress aide said here today.
Leo Pfeffer, special counsel of the AJ Congress, said the constitutionality of the legislation would be challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court if the Federal Court in New Haven finds that officials of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare did not act improperly in channeling grants to the Catholic colleges. The officials are defendants in a suit filed in the Federal Court last week on behalf of 15 Connecticut residents. It charges that grants made to the four institutions violated both the intent of the 1963 law and the Constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and church-state separation contained in the First Amendment. The schools involved are Sacred Heart University, Fairfield University, Annhurst College and Albertus Magnus College.
Mr. Pfeffer, who will serve as chief counsel to the complainants, said that more than $1.6 billion in Federal funds have been granted for college construction in the past four years and an estimated 10 percent of this has gone to religiously oriented institutions. The suit is being sponsored by the AJ Congress and the Connecticut Civil Liberties Union.
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