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Direct vs. Indirect Aid
Research by Jim Allison.
A final wrinkle on the Supreme Court's attitude toward financial
aid to religious institutions has to do with the directness of
the aid in question. Put simply, individuals might do things with
public money that the state cannot; the less role the state plays
in directing money to religious institutions, the more likely such
funding will receive the approval of the Court.
The direct aid issue has played a considerable role in shaping
establishment clause jurisprudence with respect to public
financing of religious schools. Stephen Monsma summarizes the
matter as follows:
(P)ublic money given to schools indirectly through parents or
students does not carry the same connotation of state support or
endorsement of religion as does money given directly to schools.
In 1983 the Court approved a Minnesota program of limited tax
credits for all parents who had incurred expenses in the
education of their children, whether in the form of tuition
payments for children attending nonpublic schools or
supplementary charges or incidental expenses for children
attending public schools. Writing for the Court majority, justice
William Rehnquist stated that "by channeling whatever assistance
it may provide to parochial schools through individual parents,
Minnesota has reduced the Establishment Clause objections to
which its action is subject.. . . [U]nder Minnesota's arrangement
public funds become available only as a result of numerous,
private choices of individual parents of school-age children.
The Supreme Court has never ruled that a general program of
indirect aid to nonprofit religiously based schools would pass
constitutional muster. Nevertheless, it is clear that a program
of indirect aid to private, nonprofit' schools--where the aid is
channeled through parents or children--has a greater chance of
withstanding Supreme Court scrutiny than does a program that
grants money directly to the schools themselves (When Sacred and
Secular Mix: Religious Nonprofit Organizations and Public Money,
p. 33)
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