Session 8: Religious Liberty, Race & Education
Schools have been the sites of some of the most contentious disputes over both race and religion. In this session, learn about past and contemporary battles over funding private schools with public money, permitting religious schools to engage in racial and other forms of discrimination, the possibility of religious charter schools, and the Supreme Court’s increasing acceptance of religious activities in public schools.
About the speakers
Preston Green is a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut and the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education at the Neag School. At the University of Connecticut, Dr. Green helped develop the UCAPP Law Program, which enables participants to obtain a law degree and school administrator certification at the same time. Before coming to the University of Connecticut, he was the Harry Lawrence Batschelet II Chair Professor of Educational Administration at Penn State, where he was also a professor of education and law and the program coordinator of Penn State’s educational leadership program. In addition, Dr. Green was the creator of Penn State’s joint degree program in law and education. Further, he ran the Law and Education Institute at Penn State, a professional development program that teaches, administrators, and attorneys about educational law. Dr. Green has written five books and numerous articles and book chapters pertaining to educational law. He primarily focuses on the legal and policy issues pertaining to educational access and school choice.
Monica Kristin Blair is a historian at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in histories of education and inequality in America. Blair’s current book project is about the history of racial inequality in K-12 school privatization entitled: Private Schools, Public Money: The Modern History of School Choice. She is the Historian & Education Coordinator for the Hopkins Retrospective Project, which conducts and publicly share research for the Reexamining Hopkins History project regarding Johns Hopkins University and its connections to historical legacies of slavery and racism in Baltimore. Beyond Hopkins, she has contributed to multiple projects that reckon with histories of racism in education including the University of Virginia’s President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, The UVA Department of Education’s Committee on Naming, and the Charlottesville City Schools Naming of Facilities Committee. Blair believes that a combination of deep historical research and community-based approaches to teaching are key to building just and inclusive educational spaces.
Key Takeaways
Mary McLeod Bethune with schoolchildren (1905), Library of Congress.
In the 1970s, civil rights leaders and groups were heavily involved in campaigns to prevent the public funding of private schools, such as the campaign against “parochiad” in Michigan. These activists, including Alton Lemon, were concerned that such programs would lead to the deterioration of public schools serving Black and low-income students, instead funneling money to white middle-class families that could afford private school tuition even without such subsidies.
Religious schools have sometimes sought legal protection to engage in racial and other forms of discrimination. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, which only ordered the integration of public schools, private “segregation academies” were founded across the South, many of them religiously affiliated. In 1983, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by Bob Jones University to keep its tax-exempt status while maintaining a policy, which they claimed was religious, barring interracial dating. In a troubling 2018 case, Beans v. Trinity Episcopal School, a state judge dismissed a lawsuit that accused a Texas religious school of failing to protect a student from racist bullying. The court agreed with the school’s claim that it could not “intrude upon a religious institution’s management of its internal affairs.”
Dr. Green notes that with the current Supreme Court, “everything is on the table” when it comes to the intersection of schools, race, and religion. Over the past few years, the Court has reversed course on decades of precedent by barring affirmative action, eliminating restrictions on the funding of private religious schools, and opening the door to expanded religious activity in public schools. Spurred by these changes, states have passed a flood of new legislation placing limits on the teaching of African American history, banning books, and mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments or courses teaching the Bible in public schools.
Reflection Questions
Should public funding be used for private schools? Would affording public money to religious institutions expand or contract religious freedom?
Should private religious schools be allowed to violate civil rights laws banning race discrimination? What about other forms of discrimination? How should courts discern between a valid religion-based policy, such as a requirement that students adhere to a particular religious doctrine, and improper discrimination?
In the 2022 decision Kennedy v. Bremerton School District decision, the Supreme Court allowed a football coach at a public school to pray in the middle of the field immediately after games, sometimes joined by students. What impact do you think this decision will have on religious minorities and non-religious students? Do you see the case potentially having a racial impact?
Photo of Coach Joseph Kennedy praying with students (2022), from U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton.
Further Reading
Preston Green, Bruce D. Baker & Suzanne Eckes, The Potential for Race Discrimination in Voucher Programs in a Post-Carson World, Peabody Journal of Education (forthcoming 2024)
Preston Green & Suzanne Eckes, The U.S. Supreme Court Paves Pathway to Attend Publicly Funded Religious Schools: The Potential for Discriminatory Practices, Religion and Education, 49(4), 347-90 (2022)
Preston Green, Charter Schools And Religious Institutions: A Match Made In Heaven?, West’s Education Law Reporter, 158, 1-17 (2001)
Watched this session of the curriculum and have some thoughts? We’d love to hear from you.