Professor Michael Helfand, "Can Government Fund Religious Education?" -- Public Discourse

Professor Michael A. Helfand's opinion article, "Can Government Fund Religious Education?" is published in Public Discourse. The article considers whether the Supreme Court will eventually endorse religious charter schools as necessary to avoid private religious discrimination, or reject religious charter schools as a form of religious coercion.

Excerpt from "Can Government Fund Religious Education?"

Once a court picks its path, the rest of the analysis flows pretty naturally. If we view religious charter schools as operating independently of the state, creating their own curricula and their own programs just like other private schools, then excluding religious charter schools while authorizing their nonreligious counterparts starts to look like prohibited religious discrimination. By contrast, if we view religious charter schools as simply another way for the state to satisfy its obligation to create publicly-funded, publicly-controlled public schools, then authorizing religious charter schools would seemingly run afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition against government-sponsored religious coercion.

The complete article may be found at Public Discourse