An article that appeared in a recent version of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discusses a lawsuit filed on behalf of a church in Madison, Wisconsin against a local school district. On September 10, 2008, the Open Door Church filed suit against the Sun Prairie Area School District arguing that the district’s actions had violated its First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights. At the core of the dispute is the school district's adoption of a fee system for community organizations or groups that wish to use the district’s facilities. However, as part of this fee system the district has allowed for the fees to be waved for all non-religious organizations. While they recently changed their policy to enforce a fee for all users the new policy contained a grandfather clause that allowed all groups who had previously waived fees to continue to hold such a waiver. As a result of this policy, the Open Door Church’s youth group is charged a fee for its use of the facility for weekly meetings while other, non-religious groups have access to the space for free.
Controversies such as the one presented in the Sun Prairie Area School District Case illustrate the complicated relationship between not only the two religion clauses but also with the rest of the First Amendment. The question that this case seeks to resolve places this Wisconsin school district at the top of two slippery slope arguments. If it is found that religious groups have access to government resources where does that access stop? Must we use government property, money and other resources to support religious groups? Wouldn’t such action be abhorrent to the establishment clause? On the other edge is the risk of hindering the freedom of speech and freedom of exercise that individuals and religious institutions possess. Determining the answers to these questions is essential in order to understand the very literal role that religious institutions have in relation to the state.
However, making such a determination in the case at bar, appears to this author to be quite simple, the actions of the school district clearly violated the Open Door Church’s First Amendment rights. The district’s decision to allow other community groups and organizations to use the space without a fee means that the space is, in First Amendment terms, a public speech forum. This means that the public school district does not have the ability to ban association and speech within that forum solely because of the religious nature of that speech. In 1981, the Supreme Court held in Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981) that a state university’s policy that banned religious organizations use of meeting space on campus was unconstitutional as it violated their First Amendment rights. The Court found that it violated both their right to freedom of speech and freedom of association because the denial of use of a public forum was made solely based on the content of their speech. That is to say that the public institution could not ban use of a speech forum (which the campus was determined to be) just because of the religious nature of the speech. While the parallels between this case and the case in Madison are clear what is not clear is to what degree the state and religion can be connected. Such controversies and decisions do not allow us to subscribe wholly to Jefferson’s ideal “wall of separation” and thus, the government must face some entanglement with religion.
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4 comments:
I agree that this issue raises very complicated and interesting issues. Katharine makes a good point that a Jeffersonian notion of a clear cut separation between Church and State is not possible. Given this, it seems clear to me that this example is a clear violation of the law. If this is permissible, where does one draw the line? Would it be okay for only Muslims to be forced to pay? Only Jews? Clearly price discrimination based on religion seems outrageous.
Yet one could make an argument that this is precisely what happens when religious organizations are granted tax-exempt status. They are given monetary compensation based on the pure fact that they are a religious institution, which is a clear price differentiation on the basis of religion. If this is okay, why not the inverse?
I respectfully disagree and do not believe the state is acting in an inappropriate manner. From the article, it seems that groups are generally charged a fee to use the facilities. An exemption is made for certain groups who help "the general welfare of children and the community," and the state did not believe that the church was such a group. The article seems to imply that certain nonreligious groups who did not receive the exemption were charged for the use of the facilities.
Not only do I think the state acted appropriately, but in fact I believe that had the state given the church exemption under this clause, it would have constituted a breach of the separation of church and state. A Bible study does not, in general, help the welfare of children and the community, as there are presumably members of the community who do not believe in the Bible and/or its teachings. As Jefferson said, one should not be compelled to "furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves." In this case, allowing the church free use of public property would be effectively spending public funds to promote the cause of one particular religion.
I think that the Sun Prairie Area School District is acting inconsistently with the establishment clause of the First Amendment by allowing the free use of public school property for some private groups and not allowing such free use for others, including religiously affiliated groups. The establishment clause is supposed to guarantee that the government remain neutral between different religions and between religion and irreligion. In this case, the Sun Prairie Area School District is preferring irreligion over religion. You could argue that when the founding fathers were concocting our religious liberties, they were more concerned with government preferring religion over irreligion, instead of the vice versa. However, I think if they were alive today, they would agree that it is wrong for the government to give preferential treatment to either side of that coin.
So, how do you handle the situation? The school board could either give every group- public, private, religiously affiliated- free use of public school property or they could make every group- public, private, religiously affiliated- pay a fee to use such public space for their activities. I see the first creating establishment problems again because then tax dollars are being used by the public to help support religious groups using the school's space. I think the second resolution is the appropriate one. Just make everybody pay a small fee to use the school's property for non-school-affiliated extracurricular activities. If somebody wanted to argue that this solution would then interfere with the free exercise clause, I would be ready to present my case as to why it definitely would not, but I don't think that needs to be hashed out here.
This article definitely raises a tough issue. I think that because the school would be charging ALL religious groups or organizations, that it is okay. They aren’t singling out just Christians or just Muslims. I know many churches that pay rent to use school auditoriums for their Sunday services, and I believe that’s perfectly acceptable. I do also think though that other groups should be charged as well. Unless the group is run and organized by the city itself, why should they be exempt from the fee? I understand the argument of public benefit, but in Supreme Court cases that has generally only applied to children and not necessarily the general public. You could make a case that any of those other groups are for public benefit, and then the religious groups end up being the only ones charged. Is that okay?
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