Comments (0) Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding www.ohiocoalition.org A group of taxpayers in the Cleveland area filed a case against the Cleveland voucher program pleading that the government could not pay tuition for students to attend religious schools. The local federal district court and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. However, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state. The court majority in Zelman, ruled that the voucher program did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment even though 96 percent of the voucher students attended religious schools. It is curious how the court arrived at that decision. In the 1947 Emerson case which involved student transportation, the court ruled that transportation provided to private school students was not a violation of the Establishment Clause. The Emerson majority concluded that the reimbursements for transportation “were separate so indisputably marked off from the religious function.” The majority said, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here.” Emerson […]
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