Jewish groups for the most part were relieved at the Senate’s rejection last week of President Bush’s proposal to allow low-income families to use federal funds to send their children to parochial schools.
But Orthodox Jewish groups were dismayed over the Senate’s 57-36 vote rejecting a $30 million pilot project for six unnamed school districts. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced the proposal on Bush’s behalf as an amendment to the Neighborhood Schools Improvement Act of 1992.
In addition, the Senate voted 55-38 to defeat a non-binding resolution sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) that urged the US. Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of voluntary prayer at public school graduation ceremonies.
That is the issue in a case currently before the high court, Lee vs. Weisman, involving a Jewish student protesting a rabbinic invocation at a high school commencement ceremony in Rhode Island.
Secular Jewish groups strongly oppose voluntary school prayer as excessively entangling government in religion, in violation of the constitutional separation between church and state. These groups contend that if students want to pray, they can do so on their own.
Orthodox Jewish groups, such as Agudath Israel of America, say that while they support voluntary school prayer that is non-coercive, they disliked the broad wording of Helms’ resolution.
As written, the Helms amendment went beyond advocating voluntary school prayer by urging the court to strike down two landmark cases from the 1960s that found mandatory school prayer or Bible reading unconstitutional.
ATTEMPT TO OVERTURN TWO RULINGS
Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish groups alike are united in opposing mandatory school prayer, but the Orthodox consider the wall between church and state too high, especially on government aid to parochial schools.
They argue that instead of being neutral to religion, many Supreme Court rulings are hostile to religion and thereby inhibit its “free exercise,” guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The Helms resolution urged the court to strike down the two 1960s Supreme Court rulings, “so that voluntary prayer, Bible reading or religious meetings will be permitted in public schools or public buildings to the extent that student participation in such activities is not required by school authorities.”
The two rulings alluded to were for the 1962 case of Engel vs. Vitale and the 1963 case of Abington vs. Schempp. They outlawed state-sponsored prayer and Bible reading in public school classrooms.
The Rhode Island case is much different, in that it challenges the constitutionality of a prayer offered at a high school graduation ceremony rather than in a classroom setting. The court heard the case this fall and will likely issue a ruling this spring.
While no further congressional action on school prayer is expected any time soon, the issue of aid to parochial schools may arise again. The House Education Committee last year approved a version of the education bill that would allow states to give federal aid to parochial schools if allowed by state law.
Supporters of the Hatch proposal argued that private schools usually offer stronger academic programs than public schools.
A ‘NOSE-UNDER-THE-TENT AMENDMENT’?
They also cited the high court’s 1983 ruling in Mueller vs. Allen upholding a Minnesota law that conferred as much as $700 in tax benefits to parents who sent their children to public or private schools, including religious ones.
Opponents of the Hatch proposal said they feared the demonstration projects in six school districts would amount to a more direct form of government aid to religious schools than would tax credits. They also argued that such aid would undermine the U.S. public school system, which the Jewish community has traditionally supported over the years.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), speaking in favor of the Hatch amendment, said, “As I look particularly at the religiously based school systems of our country, they are working most especially for poor and minority children.”
Lieberman, who is believed to be the first Orthodox Jew ever to serve in the Senate, questioned, “Why should not low-income students, who are the only ones given a choice by this amendment, have the same right as wealthier students to choose the school they attend?”
But Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), a Reform Jew, called it a “nose-under-the-tent amendment” that, if approved, would open the door to “funding private and parochial schools” and would undermine the public school system.
Religious schools that support the amendment “would eventually find that government funding inevitably leads to government regulation and government control,” Metzenbaum argued.
In the school prayer debate, Helms said that the academic performance and morality of U.S. children has declined significantly since the 1962 ruling, as measured by high school Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and teen-age pregnancy rates.
He also cited a July 1988 poll by The New York Times that 71 percent of U.S. citizens support voluntary prayer in public schools.
‘VESTIGE OF CHRISTIANITY’ IN SCHOOLS
“Instead of engendering an official attitude of neutrality toward religion in the schools,” Helms argued, “the school prayer decisions have in fact fueled government’s intolerance of, and assaults on, any vestige of Christianity in the public schools.”
Surprisingly, arch-conservative Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) voted against the Helms amendment, arguing like many senators did that it would “improperly interfere with the independence of the judicial branch of government.”
Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) told Helms one of his favorite stories about how Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Okla.), as a Jewish fourth-grader in Wichita, Kan., excused himself during prayer time.
“When the prayer was over, he was brought back,” Simon said. “Every morning he was told you are different from the other students.”
Helms questioned whether the pupils told Glickman, “Son, you are different,” to which Simon replied, “I do not know that anyone said it, but that was clearly the implication.”
“He can deal with that implication,” Helms replied.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
